


broke some rocks right through your window

by fallfreely



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Kid Fic, M/M, Rockstar Harry, Teacher Liam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-18
Updated: 2014-01-18
Packaged: 2018-01-08 21:52:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 57,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1137807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallfreely/pseuds/fallfreely
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reception teacher Liam might be able to handle a classroom full of children with no sweat— but when it comes to letting himself fall in love, he finds he still has loads left to learn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There aren't enough thank-you's in the world for the dream team that helped bring this fic to life, but I'll start by saying thanks to [Amber](http://amberbakesfic.tumblr.com/), who was relentless in spamming me pictures of quaint country villages and fetes and girl's schools with them in their little blazers until I had absolutely no other choice but to write this. Bless her face. Thanks also to the lovely [Becky](http://gryles-cries.tumblr.com/), who is an amazing Brit-picker and very helpful and willing to tolerate my unrelenting astonished Americanness. Also, OF COURSE, I can't wrap this up without heaping gratitude on [Diana](http://andwhatyousaid.tumblr.com/). Just for the fact alone that she read this entire massive thing in 2,000 word chunks she should get a medal— except I'm also positive she would've also taken it in 200 word chunks (or less) if I'd needed her to. I don't even know what to do with someone like that, but I definitely don't deserve her.
> 
> Speaking of undeserving: I had a fantastic artist to work with and I couldn't be luckier. [Moa](http://louislovelinson.tumblr.com/) has done some brilliant illustrations (they'll be linked throughout in the text) and the masterpost of that artwork is [here](http://louislovelinson.tumblr.com/post/73587039665/1d-big-bang-i-broke-some-rocks-right-through). Please don't miss them! :)
> 
> Disclaimer: It can't be overstated how completely fictional this is.

Liam’s already panting, air heaving hot in his lungs. He pushes himself harder, tossing a reckless sidelong grin at the runner he’s racing against.

“I’ve definitely got you this time,” Liam gets out, wasting breath that he should be saving. Especially when Liam’s rival just picks up his heels, stretching his long legs to outstrip Liam like it’s nothing. Liam digs deep, reaches for that extra bit of effort he always has, speeding up till his trainers are slapping hard on the pavement, but in the end— just like every other day— it doesn’t make a difference. 

The other runner beats Liam to the end of the Robinson’s hedgerows with yards to spare, not even slowing down— just goes barreling on past, starting to bark his head off at the ducks from the next farm over, the handful of mallards and hens that like to bed down by the Robinson’s pond. They go quacking away across the water, also the same as every other morning. Tony still thinks it’s the greatest lark; Liam doubts he’ll ever fully understand his dog.

Liam groans and stops running, his trainers skidding in the gravel at the end of the lane, immediately bending with his hands on his knees to try and suck the air back into his lungs. When he can spare a piece of it he shouts, “Shut it, Tony, you bloody great idiot!”

The big saluki stops barking and comes streaking back to Liam with his oversized ears flapping in the wind and his tongue lolling out, licking all over Liam’s face when he gets near. Liam laughs, pushing Tony’s white muzzle away as he sits down, resting his tired legs. “Yeah, you won, I got it. Doesn’t mean you’re allowed to bark at the poor ducks.” 

Tony pants at him, grinning in doggy-fashion, and Liam flops over onto the wet grass, staring up at the sky that’s the same slate-gray as Tony’s fur. Typical morning sky in the English countryside, typical morning run, the start to what probably will be a very typical Monday at work. Liam shuts his eyes, tucking his arms under his head, humming. There’s a particular song that’s been stuck in his head for days now, Liam can’t get rid of it; just when he thinks he’s lost it, it comes back, buzzing like an overly friendly bumble bee. Not that he minds— it’s an ace song. He just wishes he knew how it got there.

There’s a loud snuffling near Liam’s ear, and then a cold wet nose pressing against it, followed by a warm wet tongue. “Stop, Pepper,” Liam says, opening his eyes and scolding her. 

Her beautiful brown eyes just blink down at Liam, unconcerned, and then she wanders away to investigate whatever Tony’s doing, which is more than likely finding himself trouble that Pepper will be happy to make worse. She can never be fussed about keeping up with Liam and Tony’s racing, always taking her own sweet time about everything, but she’s definitely the one of the pair that Liam has to keep an eye on the most. The two of them together are a double handful, almost taking up every free ounce of time and energy that Liam has to to spare— almost like having kids of his own, pretty much. Very nearly the same.

Liam sits up, whistling for Tony and Pep, and they come galloping back to his side, the long fur of their coats sticking to the dew on Liam’s legs as they prance around him. The three of them head at a much slower jog back up to the top of the lane— up to the small country house that’s been in Liam’s family for generations, that his grandfather’s grandfather helped build stone-by-stone, with its window-boxes full of flowers that Liam’s grandmother made when she was a girl, with its second-world war plumbing and its radiator that clicks, its creaky wood floors, its creepy attic that Liam had thought was haunted until he was twelve.

The screen door of the side entrance always sticks, too, but Liam knows the right way of wriggling it loose, and the dogs go barging past Liam into the house when he does, their nails tapping on the seventies-era lino, already whinging at him for their breakfasts.

He’s got the morning-ritual dance of pouring their food while making his tea and toast and bunging the necessary bits and bobs for work into his satchel down to an art form, and after that he showers and gets dressed, fills his thermos flask with tea and then lets the dogs out into the garden for the day where they’ll probably do worse damage to Liam’s green beans and tomatoes than the wild rabbits ever manage. Even with all that, Liam’s still promptly out his front door and on his bicycle at half seven, trying to juggle his thermos and his mobile and manage not to crash into his neighbor’s prize-winning rose bushes as he goes.

There’s a text from one of Liam’s old mates from school, probably came in late last night and Liam’s missed seeing it till now because he doesn’t bother to check his phone all that often— not much point when it’s only his sisters that ever text him, and his mum calls like clockwork every Sunday. The text is just Andy’s usual drunken plea for Liam to come down to London over the weekend, go on a pub crawl with the lads, try and get laid. 

Liam sighs, looking at it, then shuffles his mobile back into his pocket, wondering if it would be easier to just steer his bike into a tree now, save himself the trouble of trying to come up with a better excuse for not going besides not wanting to miss the new episode of _BGT_. It’s not that Liam minds doing any of that stuff— especially not the getting laid bit, especially since it’s been a while— it’s just that he’s got quite boring in his old age, really. A night in with Tony and Pep sounds loads more appealing than trying to fashion himself into a version of Liam Payne that remembers how to dress for a night out, like he used to in uni. He used to know how to fix his hair into a slick quiff, how to cock his head just so, how to fake like he’s sure of himself; pulling used to be as easy as a smile aimed in the right direction. 

But all that’s a much different version from how he is now— from normal, grown-up, everyday Liam. This Liam wears waistcoats and cardis five days a week, scrubs poster paint from under his nails more often than not, dances the Hokey Cokey way better than he dances to anything a DJ might spin in a nightclub. 

Liam’s said as much to Andy, plenty of times before, but Andy always gives Liam a disapproving look and tells Liam that he’s twenty-five, not forty-five— could he please try to remember that. Liam usually just shrugs.

He’s twenty-five and he’s in a rut. It’s not a bad thing, though. Liam likes his rut just fine.

*

When Liam goes to collect his kids after the ending bell has been rung for the end of break time, there’s a bit of trouble waiting for him. The girls are rubbish at queuing up as a general rule, but today there’s not even a hint of a line, all of them muddled up and huddling, one small figure tucked in the middle of everyone else. 

Liam was already hurrying his steps, but when he catches a glimpse of a sloppy knot of dark curly hair poking out from behind the gaggle of arms and elbows, he breaks into a jog. 

The girls start clamoring for him as soon as he gets close, calling, “Teacher, teacher! Lucy’s done it again,” all in their high piping voices, some of them even laughing. The group unfolds with more bird-like sounds as Liam wades into their midst, feeling a bit like Dorothy amongst the Munchkins as he does, and then there’s Lucy with her hair flopping into her eyes, beaming and showing off a scraped and bloodied elbow.

“What’s this?” Liam’s tutting as he carefully catches her arm, peering at the scrape. “Third time this month, isn’t it? You’re like Bambi on ice.”

“We were playing Tarzan and Jane,” Lucy tells him, trying to swing her free arm as an example, clinging maybe to invisible vines. “I was Tarzan!”

“How about next time you can play pretend naptime, lay there quietly and not hurt yourself, eh?” Liam says, making her laugh, which was the point. He shakes his head, tsking. “This looks terrible, button. Your arm might have to come off. We’ll need to send you to the nurse to get it amputated straight away.”

“Nooo!” she protests, setting off the other girls at the same time, till the emptying playground is nearly ringing with their shrieks and the other teachers are giving Liam’s class disapproving looks as they walk their students back to classes in neat little duckling rows. In the middle of that, Lucy slips her tiny hand into Liam’s bigger one, blinking her fawn-like hazel eyes up at him. She could give Pepper a run for her money with those eyes. Liam doesn’t think he’s built to know how to resist them. 

“Want you to fix it for me, Mr. P. Pretty please?” she says— and that’s how Liam ends up walking the girls back to class with Lucy’s hand still tucked into his own, her yammering his ear off about Tarzan and monkey bars and monkeys the whole time. Liam feels guilty about the show of favoritism, but not enough to actually send Lucy off to Nurse Ratched over in the administration wing. He’d tried that for the first of Lucy’s tripping-over-her-own-feet injuries, back at the start of school, and Lucy’d come back in tears when he’d left her off laughing. So that was no good.

Anyway, Liam has a box of plasters and some antiseptic cream in his desk drawer, because it’s always best to be prepared. He sits Lucy in his chair while he grabs a few wet-wipes and tells the rest of the girls to get on with copying the grammar lesson off the board— not holding out hope that they’ll do any such thing, mind, but buying himself a few minutes to see to Lucy’s elbow.

“Guess what!” she chirps at him while he’s using the wet-wipes to clean off the blood and dirt from the scrape. It must sting, but she’s beaming still, swinging her little legs in her purple tights since her feet don’t hit the floor from the height of Liam’s desk chair.

Liam is pretty sure he knows exactly what, since Lucy’s made a point of announcing her big news nearly every day since the start of October, but he still humors her, furrowing his eyebrows like he’s considering. “You got a pet porcupine?” he says, acting shocked, and she cracks up laughing. He has to admit it’s quite gratifying to teach four and five year-olds— most of them find Liam a lot funnier than his adult friends do.

“No!” she says, and Liam offers another guess.

“You’re going to join the Russian circus?” 

“Nooo,” she says again, grinning delightedly and kicking her feet even harder. Liam has to shift how he’s standing to avoid an accidental blow from her Dora the Explorer trainers to his kneecap.

“I reckon you’ve stumped me,” Liam says, picking up the box of plasters and pulling out a selection of different patterns and colors for her to choose from. She grabs a glittery blue one, vibrating fit to burst.

“Daddy’s coming home tonight!” she says, and her grin is so infectious that Liam beams along even though he’s never met the man. He’s still happy for Lucy, given that she’s so obviously overjoyed, even if Liam doesn’t understand how her father can manage to stay away from that dimpled smile for over a month; it’d break Liam’s heart, he’s sure. When you’re a Brit-and-Grammy award-winning musician on a European tour, though, Liam reckons there isn’t much other choice.

Liam, for his part, is rather more nervous than excited to meet Lucy’s dad— not that he doesn’t have a room full of beautiful kids from all walks of life, even if the Puddington Lake Academy for Girls is a fairly posh school by anyone’s standards. There’s also the daughter of a member of the House of Commons in his class, and another of the Vice-Chairman of Barclays, and hadn’t Liam just been in a sweat when he’d shook their hands at the start of term. 

But finally getting to meet Lucy’s dad feels different from that, even if Liam can’t quite put his finger on why. It’s not as if Liam’s a huge fan of his band. He honestly can’t even spell the name of it— _Loptra? Lopidoptra?_ Something weird and indie like that, Liam had forgot as soon as he’d Googled it— still, Liam’s learned enough about Harry Styles by now to fill his own Wikipedia page, probably, if people were interested in knowing the same things about the man that his daughter knows: that he can meow just like a cat; that he likes to play tea party; that he’d had a pet hamster named Maddy when he was a kid, and he’d almost named Lucy that except he’d changed his mind and that’s why Lucy is named after Lucy Benjamin instead.

“Daddy says he’s really excited to meet you,” Lucy tells him, interrupting the drift of Liam’s thoughts. He finishes dabbing the cream on over her scrape, amused and trying to imagine anyone who’s worked with artists like Hayley Williams, and Ed Sheeran—had dated bloody Taylor Swift, even— being excited to meet Liam’s very un-exciting self. 

He smiles, taking the blue plaster and peeling it out of the wrapper, saying, “Oh, is he? So you told him good things about me, I hope?”

“Yep! I told him you were my favoritest teacher ever,” she says, with all the conviction only a four year-old can muster.

Liam concentrates on getting the plaster placed so the sticky ends aren’t over the scrape, then presses it on gently. “Aren’t I your only teacher ever?” he asks, even more amused.

“Yeah,” Lucy shrugs. Liam shakes his head, still grinning, and finally sends her back to her seat. He picks up the grammar book from the pile on his desk, clearing his throat into the buzz of whispering noise in the room.

“Alright, ladies, if you’ve finished copying down the vocabulary words, let’s turn to page twenty-two and go over them together.”

*

They end the day with the music lesson, which is always a bit chaotic— ‘lesson’ is a misnomer, too, since mostly the girls do very loud things with the instruments that don’t necessarily involve even attempting to follow the sheet music— and after that’s over there’s the usual rush to get things tidied away, make sure everyone’s taken down the homework assignment, has their grammar and maths packets tucked into their bags, has on their little navy blue school blazers with the gold badge for Puddington Lake Academy on the front. There’re still some crayons and papers left on the carpet by the time Liam herds his troops out of the class, but that’s to be expected. He’ll come back and tidy up some more before gathering his own things; Liam hates leaving a mess for the cleaners if he doesn’t have to. 

A teacher’s job is never done, not really, and certainly not even after the last bell’s rung— this week Liam’s in charge of getting the smaller girls who need to be in line for the buses, and standing pick-up duty on the front lawn with the ones who get lifts from their families. Pick-up duty is supposed to be rotated through the staff, same with lunch duty, but Liam’s been on both nearly every week since the start of term. He is the new guy in the staff room, so he supposes a bit of hazing is only natural. And it’s not as if he minds the duties; he gets worried, a bit, leaving it up to anyone else to make sure all his girls get properly seen off home.

Today, for whatever reason, it ends up being that Lucy is the last student left. It’s strange— normally Anne comes right on time to fetch her granddaughter, but it’s twenty after and the school’s mostly emptied out, and Anne’s not rung the offices to say she’ll be delayed or even that she has to send Lucy’s aunt in her place, which has happened a few times. It leaves Liam feeling a bit anxious, holding Lucy’s hand and scanning the last few cars left in the car park and up along the kerb.

Lucy seems mostly unphased— she’s a very easy-going child. Right now she’s fiddling with the wilted daisy-chain she’d made at lunch time, plopping it on and off her messy black curls, humming nonsense music. Liam’s checking his watch for the fifth time in the past half-hour when he realizes the tune Lucy’s humming is familiar— the same one he’s had stuck in his head all weekend. This solves the mystery of where he’d heard it from, maybe.

He nudges her shoulder with his elbow. “Hey, button, what’s that song you’re singing?” 

“Oh! It’s daddy’s song,” Lucy says, in the tones of someone announcing something proudly for the dozenth time. “It’s his favorite song because it’s written about me.” She launches back into it with all the grace of a daughter of a musician, singing Stevie Wonder like she’s been doing it since she could talk— which, probably, is exactly the case.

Liam blinks, startled, but it’s that kind of song and before long he’s humming along, ninety-percent certain he’s about to get pulled into some kind of skipping circle dance to the beat of ‘Isn’t She Lovely,’ but they get interrupted when a massive black Range Rover with tinted windows comes rumbling up the long school drive. Liam doesn’t recognize the car, and as it parks in front of them Liam tightens his grip on Lucy’s tiny fingers, wary of the ‘stranger danger’ that they always warn the kids about.

There’s no reason to be, as it turns out— the driver of the Range Rover gets out of the car, and a tall, dark-haired man wearing classic Ray-Bans is all Liam registers before Lucy all but rips her hand out of Liam’s to go tearing across the lawn, squealing, “Daddy!” at the top of her lungs as she runs.

The man who must be Lucy’s father drops to his knees in the grass, gathering her into a hug so tight it almost hurts just to look at. Liam looks elsewhere—those azalea bushes are looking smart, aren’t they. The school groundskeeper does a lovely job. The paint on the trim of the office building looks like it could use a couple coats of touch-up, though. 

In the corner of his eye, Liam can see Lucy’s dad standing up to spin her around a few times, till he’s wobbling and they’re both laughing dizzily. Liam smiles down at the tops of his oxfords, listening to them.

Finally they start walking over, Lucy tugging her dad along with all the enthusiasm of a puppy at the end of a lead, confined only by the length of her dad’s arm— and as they get closer, Liam starts taking in more details with same stomach-sinking feeling of riding a lift to the top of a building: the slim-fitting skinny jeans that Styles is wearing, the boots, the black peacoat that looks like it came straight off the hangers at Harrod’s. Liam becomes supremely self-aware of the first impression he must make, by comparison— his lack of a tie, his cardigan that’s so old it’s practically tissue paper, his trousers with grass stains on the knees from where he’d had to help tackle those two third year girls at lunch who’d been brawling. Liam smoothes a palm down the front of his top, as if the motion will magically unwrinkle it, then holds his hand out to shake at the same time Lucy’s dad does.

“You must be the famous Mr. P I’ve heard so much about,” he says, smiling in the same slow way that he’s speaking, pushing his sunglasses back into the mess of his hair with his free hand as he does. 

It’s just— Liam isn’t stunned, exactly, or left gaping. He manages to keep his teeth stuck together well enough. And he refuses to use the word ‘starstruck’. But this is definitely Harry Styles, and that is definitely a face Liam’s seen more times than he can count on both hands, always staring back from the front of all those raggy magazines they have at the corner shop where Liam buys milk on his way home from work. He’s pretty sure there might’ve been a _Rolling Stones_ cover somewhere in there. 

“P for Payne,” Liam says, though Styles probably already knows that, and then Liam’s mouth keeps yammering on, “I mean, it’s Liam, if you’d like. No need for us to be formal.” Liam realizes they’ve been shaking hands for a solid minute now as Liam’s mind’s been wandering. He lets go, finishing up his introduction with, “You must be the famous Harry Styles.”

Harry laughs like he’s surprised, a low sound that matches the rumble of his voice. Liam flushes over his mistake, blurting, “Oh— that was— that was a horrid joke, Mr. Styles, I’m sorry. I’d meant to say the famous Lucy’s father.” Liam laughs awkwardly. “That joke isn’t much better, actually.” At this rate he’s going to end up in the Guinness book for worst first impression of all time. 

“If I’m calling you Liam, then you’re calling me Harry,” Harry says, shrugging in a way that’s so similar to his daughter that Liam feels a bit of deja vu, looking at him. “S’only fair that way.”

“Daddy,” Lucy says, tugging on the end of his coat. “Where are my presents? I want to show Mr. P.” 

“They’re in my suitcases—” Harry starts, then has to talk louder over her immediate squealing, “Where they will stay until after you eat supper, and also all your vegetables.” Harry looks at Liam and grins like he’s letting him in on the joke, adding, “Have to assert my dad powers after being away so long, innit?” 

Liam feels himself grinning back, his nerves subsiding, and they don’t flare back up even when Harry tells Lucy, “Go play for a bit, runt. I need to have a proper chat with your teacher, make sure you haven’t been terrorizing him too much.”

“Can I go make a daisy chain, daddy?” Lucy sighs as if this is a much poorer substitute for presents, which Liam supposes is understandable.

“Sure, goose,” Harry tells her, bending at the waist to plant a kiss on her wild curls. If Liam hadn’t already known, it would be obvious for miles who she’d got them from. “Make me one too, won’t you? I’ve been needing a decent flower crown for ages.”

After Lucy skips off to the nearest patch of clover flowers— not quite daisies, but good enough, and also within eyesight, which is the part Liam likes— Harry and Liam look back at each other, and it’s only when Harry flashes a smile again that Liam realizes he hasn’t stopped smiling himself since he started, and now Harry probably thinks he’s a loon. Liam puts on his professional teacher face, clearing his throat.

“Did you have a good tour, then?” Liam asks. He doesn’t want to come across like a groupie, so he explains, “Lucy’s been giving me all the updates. I heard you were just in Germany; did you fly out from there?” 

Liam doesn’t add in the part where he’d caught Lucy having a bit of a mope about missing her dad a couple weeks back, so he’d suggested keeping a map of Harry’s trip through Europe— Lucy faithfully reporting in where Harry had called her from the night before, Liam helping her stick the gold stars onto the right cities. It had seemed to help.

“Yeah, I’ve just come from the airport, actually. Wanted to surprise her.” Harry shoves his hands into the deep pockets of his coat as he tacks on an apology, “Sorry for being so late like this.” Now that Liam’s looked at the larger picture, so to speak, he notices the smaller things— the bags under Harry’s eyes, the unwashed shine to his hair, how exhausted he looks. Perversely, it makes Liam feel a bit better about his grass-stained trousers.

“No, please, it was worth the wait,” Liam protests, even meaning it. “Lucy’s talked of nothing else but you coming home for days now— reckon I was counting down the minutes as much as she was by the end of it.”

Harry does a lifted eyebrow at Liam; on anyone else it might have looked skeptical, on Harry it just seems pleased. He says, “I’ve heard loads about you, to be honest. Thought I might come home to find Luce’s started up an official Mr. P fanclub.”

“Nice to see my bribes are working.” Liam goes for the joke, wanting to make up for his lameness at the start. He gets rewarded by hearing Harry laugh again. The sound of it echo warmly off the air between them, sinking into Liam’s chest like the first nearly too-hot swallow of a cup of tea. He wants to hear more of Harry laughing. Liam probably shouldn’t be wanting that as much as he does.

*

When Liam gets home that evening and lets the dogs in from the garden, he registers that someone— not pointing any fingers— probably Pepper, though— has dug up another one of Liam’s tomato plants, but he can’t be too fussed about it. He’s got plenty of other things to fuss over.

“Are you seeing this?” Liam says, showing off his Blackberry screen. Tony licks Liam’s hand then the phone, flagging his tail, obviously hoping for a treat. 

“That is Harry Styles’ phone number, is what that is,” Liam tells them, bringing the screen back up to his own face to squint at. There it is— still there from when Styles had plucked the phone right out of Liam’s hand with a smile, saving himself as _Lucy’s dad_ , drawling in his low pleasant voice, “Seems good to have it just in case, I reckon,” and texting himself from Liam’s phone before Liam could do much more than answer, “Oh, I— suppose so, yes.” The whole encounter still feels a bit surreal.

Pepper comes back out to the steps, impatiently circling Liam’s legs and trying to trip him like a cat. She doesn’t care that Liam has a man with twelve million twitter followers in his contacts— she just wants to nosh some supper.

“You’re no fun at all,” Liam tells her. He pockets his phone again, leading the dogs into the kitchen.

That same night, when he’s out for one last run— just had a lot of excess energy to burn off for some reason— Liam’s mobile buzzes in his pocket, and he slows to a jog to pull it out, seeing he’s got a text. He almost trips into Mrs. Carmichael’s rhododendrons when he sees the text is from Harry. 

_It was great meeting you finally._

Liam stands in the middle of the lawn to type an answer back, Tony racing ahead to the corner and returning in the time it takes Liam to get out: _same to you :)_ even without thinking too much about it. Tony rears up and puts his paws on Liam’s hip, like he’s trying to push Liam into moving again, and Liam laughs, though it’s more at himself then at his dog. 

“I’m keeping my head about me, I swear,” Liam says like he’s making a promise, though it seems a bit ridiculous to do so— for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that Tony doesn’t understand what Liam’s saying. 

He starts running again, letting his head fill up with the quiet of the village, the yellow lights of all the windows he’s passing getting warmer as the night gets darker, the sky going from navy blue to black ink, Tony’s furry body looking more like a shadow at the corner of Liam’s vision as they go.

He deliberately doesn’t check his mobile again until right before he’s crawling into bed— Pepper a heavy lumpy weight across his feet, Tony already snoring from the dogbed in the corner— and even with the promise he’d made, Liam’s heart still stutters quite unnecessarily when he sees there’s another text from Harry that’s waiting for him.

_We didn’t talk very much about Lucy’s school stuff, I’ve realized._

Liam pulls a pillow over his face, hating himself a bit for how easily he can summon nearly every word of that conversation into his head; in his own defense, though, it hadn’t been very long. After Lucy had come skipping back to her dad with the flower garlands— which Harry had insisted she put on him after scooping her up into his arms— they’d left for home, Lucy waving bye to Liam over Harry’s shoulder, Harry grinning sideways at her as he’d walked to the car, those bloody flowers resting in his dark curls like something out of a French pastoral painting. 

Liam gives up on trying to smother himself, looking over at his bedside clock. It’s only just turned nine. Harry is probably awake, isn’t he? What self-respecting rockstar turns in before sunrise? And there’s the jet-lag to contend with, too.

Pepper huffs at him from the foot of the bed for shifting around so much, and Liam fishes his mobile out from where he’s lost it in his grandma’s quilt to send a quick reply, not being as careful with his spelling as he ought have been.

_we cannn set up a proper meeting if u like? all official and evrything._

Sure enough, Harry’s reply comes not five minutes later, just as Liam’s at the point where he’s going to click off the lamp and try to go to sleep.

_Can we make it a meeting and coffee? ;) That place in town has good bagels._

Liam puzzles over this for a while. He very nearly looks for Harry’s twitter account just to see if winky faces are something he uses on the regular, but then Liam decides he’d rather keep as much of his dignity as he possibly can, instead.

He sends back: _sure? be a bit easier to show u lucy’s portfolio & things at the school thou_

Harry answers — _Maybe we can get to the bagels some other time then._

It takes a long hour after Liam’s already turned off the light and squeezed his eyes shut to convince himself of something: there’s no way on Earth that Harry’s last text sounded anything close to disappointed. Once he does that, Liam falls asleep straight away.

*

The next few days pass in a hectic blur for Liam, who has somehow been saddled with all the planning for the first school trip of the year, four classes from the younger years going as one to a manor park that’s nearby in the county— so on top of teaching, and sessions of dinosaur rock band during music hour, and pick-up duties, Liam has to find the time for endless mountains of phone calls, and permission slips, and arranging for buses, and triple-checking the allergy concerns against the packed lunches. It’s amazing he isn’t bald by Thursday with the stressed-out way he’s been yanking on his hair. 

It doesn’t help that Lucy’s been off sick, apparently having caught some weird bug her dad brought home from Europe. Liam’s been finding himself writing on the board and glancing over his shoulder, eyes instinctively falling on the empty seat at the second table and expecting a curious hand to be in the air. During break times when they’re in their messy queue, he’s been counting up his kids twice because he keeps coming up short, and he feels a pang when he remembers why.

He almost sends texts to Lucy’s dad on four different occasions, wanting to ask after her, but stops himself each time. Even though Liam had called to check in on Susie Jordan when she’d had chicken pox last month, he still can’t convince his guilty conscience that it’s the same, that it’s the professional thing to do. 

He transfers all his worry onto the field trip instead, all the tasks left to do with just a week and half to go. Coaxing parents into being chaperones is one of the biggest, and Liam’s resorted to cornering them after school if cold-calling them at home doesn’t work. It’s a bit like herding cats, but he’s always been fairly decent at talking people into things— turning on the earnest charm, smiling as pleadingly as he can until they cave. The school regulations say he only needs one adult per eight students, but Liam would like twice that number just to be on the safe side.

He’s so busy, in fact, that on Thursday he takes a detour from his normal evening running route to stop by the supermarket for more ready meals; he’s been burning through his stash in the freezer all this week. He’ll have to fib to his mum when she rings on Sunday, otherwise she’ll spend the whole call scolding Liam for eating like he’s still in uni. 

He’s in the frozen section and trying to decide if he wants to sacrifice freezer room to a couple bags of vegetables when a low voice nearly startles him into dropping a bag of peas on his foot.

“Those two ponies outside belong to you, I’m betting.”

Liam turns and sees none other than Harry Styles, shopping at Liam’s local market with a basket hooked on his arm and a beanie over his hair, kitted out in what Liam would swear is the exact same pair of jeans he was wearing on Monday; his top is plaid, again, but it might be a different plaid, Liam’s not sure.

Liam can feel his eyebrows crowding together in confusion, trying to picture ponies on a hitch outside the shop— their village isn’t _that_ rural, honestly— but then he laughs, remembering Tony and Pepper. They’re usually very patient about waiting for Liam on the pavement: no leashes required, no wandering off. They’re so good, in fact, that most of the shop owners in the village don’t mind them following Liam inside, collecting his parcels or his dry-cleaning along with him; Liam’s the one who figures he might as well draw the line at bringing them inside a food shop— it’s hardly hygienic.

“Ah, yeah, they’re probably mine,” Liam agrees, forcing the corners of his mouth down in mock rebuke. “Are you trying to say they’re oversized? They’re perfectly healthy salukis I’ll have you know.”

“Purebreds, are they,” Harry says. He’s kicking the toe of one boot against the floor, his free hand in the pocket of his coat, standing here with Liam like this is normal— like they’re neighbors, like chatting in the frozen foods aisle is a thing that happens every week. Liam’s finding it hard not to stare at him in amazement. 

“Do you like, show them?” Harry asks, still making interested, casual conversation.

It’s not like Liam needs any sort of coaxing to talk about his dogs; all of his mates and real neighbors have got an earful at some point or another. His chest puffs out a bit, a daft grin taking over his face as he says, “Well, no, they’re both rejects from the breeding kennel. Small defects, things like that— Pepper has too much white dappling in her fur, or something. They’re perfect enough for me, though.”

“Then they’re meant to have those gangly spider legs,” Harry says, the smile on his face lilting into one that’s obviously teasing. 

“You’re one to talk,” Liam huffs, eyes dragging pointedly down Harry’s own ridiculously long legs— which is a massive mistake, actually, and Liam snaps his gaze back to a suddenly fascinating box of fish fingers, pretending the heat he feels blooming in his cheeks doesn’t exist. Neither does the sideways crook of Harry’s mouth that Liam catches from the corner of his vision; can’t, if Liam doesn’t acknowledge it.

Harry shuffles closer. “So your pets are healthy, but what’s all this, mate?” He pokes disapprovingly at the frozen pizzas in Liam’s basket; Liam tries to hide it behind his back, but it’s too late. 

The clean woodsy smell of Harry’s cologne, or aftershave, or whatever is distracting, making Liam too conscious of the fact that he’s fresh from a run: hair a mess, wearing joggers and a grey shirt that shows every streak of sweat, trainers that Pepper’s chewed on. 

But it’s freeing, like this. Instead of worrying about looking like an idiot, Liam gives up the fight and lets himself just sit comfortably inside his own skin. Liam grins back easy, saying, “I’m a bachelor— not meant to be able to proper cook, am I? I do have a few vegetables, look.” He hefts the bag of frozen peas as proof.

“Those are mum-guilt vegetables; don’t lie to me, Liam,” Harry says.

Liam laughs because Harry’s nailed it. And because he’s standing right there and Liam’s not thinking too much about it, he whacks Harry in the elbow with the bag. The dimple tucked into Harry’s cheek gets even deeper, if possible.

It does something to Liam’s stomach to see it— a dive, a sudden jolt— and with a similar jarring realization it occurs to him that to an outside observer this might look a lot like flirting. It feels a lot like flirting, if he’s being honest— bad idea, that. Worst of all possible ideas. Liam steps backwards, carefully, looking around for an exit strategy, and as he’s looking he notices the lemsip and children’s cold tablets and soup Harry’s got bunged into his own basket.

Liam feels a rush of concern. “I’m sorry, I should have asked— how’s Miss Lucy? Is she still poorly?”

“Her fever’s broken, finally. She’s on the mend— already wants to go back to school, if you can believe it.” And just like their first meeting, now that Liam’s looking past the expensive coat he’s seeing more— the dark rings under Harry’s eyes, for one, and it’s easy for Liam to picture how Harry might’ve got them: sitting at Lucy’s bedside all night, holding her small hand, maybe singing to her quietly. Liam’s stomach twists again, but this time in a different way.

“I miss her, too,” Liam says, because he does, realizing once the words are out of his mouth that he might have said ‘we’ instead, meaning the whole class. Harry only smiles, wide and genuine; a bit surprised, maybe, but mostly just exhausted. It’s on the tip of Liam’s tongue to offer to help— he’s so close to lifting a hand to touch Harry’s shoulder that Liam’s arm twitches, but then he remembers where they are, and who they are, and the fact that this is only the second time they’ve ever spoke, and that Liam is being entirely ridiculous. He turns the motion into one of cramming a few more bags of veg into his basket, tossing Harry an apologetic look.

“I should get home,” Liam says, suddenly stammering, speaking too quickly. “Dogs to feed, papers to mark, all that. Give Lucy my best, won’t you?” 

Even as Harry’s saying, “Sure, mate,” casually waving goodbye, Liam’s making a break for it, all but dashing towards the checkout. Hopefully it won’t register with Harry that Liam teaches Reception— marking papers mostly consists of Liam stamping a smiley face on things.

He’s nearly finished paying for his groceries when he sees the tabloid, tucked away on the stand next to racks of gum and mints and five other rags, but this one has Harry Styles’s face on the cover, doesn’t it— blurry paparazzi shot of him at what must be the airport, blown up and granulated. Liam doesn’t mean to, but he can’t help but read the bold-font headline, shrieking as much as text can shriek about some fashion model Harry has supposedly left behind in Berlin. No shots of the two of them on the cover— that’s what comes with picking the magazine up, it promises, along with ‘cheeky nudes.’ Liam doesn’t want to touch it with a barge pole. 

He’s tucking his chin into his chest to laugh ruefully when the shopkeeper nudges Liam to give him back his change. He takes it, shunting the coins off into a tin for a local charity that’s sat on the counter. 

“Good fortune bound to come of that,” says the shopkeeper, smiling kindly.

“You keep it, then,” Liam says, smiling back, ignoring the tight feeling in his stomach that has yet to go away. “Reckon I’ve already got everything I need.”

*

Next Monday morning Lucy comes skipping up to Liam’s desk after stashing her coat and boots in the cloakroom, the rest of the girls getting set at their tables with their bookbags, chatting happily to each other, a sound Liam misses every weekend when he has to go two days without hearing it. Lucy looks a picture of health, he’s glad to see, all rosy cheeks and messy black curls.

“Hold up there,” Liam tells her when she rushes towards his legs, obviously intending to cling to them. “Have you got a doctor’s note, young lady?”

“Yes, I do!” she says, and hands him what seems to be a packed lunch with a folded white note pinned to the front of it. Liam takes it, puzzled, but when he opens the note it is indeed the excuse, filled out in messy doctor’s scribble. Liam pockets it for his attendance papers, then shakes his head at her, frowning sadly.

“Oh dear,” he says, voice tragic. “Have you read this? Contagious for fifty years, it says. You can’t hug anyone ever again.”

“Am not!” she protests, giggling delightedly. She moves in with a little dinosaur-like growl, or perhaps it’s a laugh, hugging Liam tight. 

“That’s done it. I’m infected now.”

She’s laughing like Liam is the funniest person ever, and with a twinge in his chest he realizes he has missed her, actually— quite a lot. He’s still feeling fond even in the next minute, when Lucy’s taking it as a game and running off to infect her all mates with her ‘germs,’ hugging everybody and shouting, “You’re infected!” and making the classroom dissolve into general chaos. Liam doesn’t mind— it’s pretty typical for a Monday morning, and there’re still a few minutes before the first bell rings.

He takes the time to inspect the brown paper bag Lucy’s left him saddled with. He’d thought it was hers at first, though she usually comes all set with her Pingu lunchbox, but taking off the doctor’s note had revealed Liam’s name written on the front of the bag. He opens it and isn’t much enlightened by what he finds inside: a sandwich, a banana, a handful of biscuits.

Digging around, he finds another note that’s buried underneath the biscuits, but this one certainly didn’t come from a doctor.

_Hey Mr. P,  
Funny story— after I saw you at the store the other night, I took the liberty of asking Luce if you also had terrible eating habits at work. She was very confused—told me you never eat, which at first I took to mean she still believes all her teachers are like magical creatures who never leave the school, or ever do human things like go home and sleep. But then she said you always work through lunch— which if I’m being honest, Liam, is even more appalling. Lunch is the most important meal of the day, all that. I expressed the tiniest bit of concern, and the runt insisted on making your lunch along with her own— wasn’t my idea in the least, mate._

_Hope you’re not allergic to peanut butter. It’s organic and very good.  
—Harry _

Liam is torn between being extremely confused and extremely touched. Lucky for him, the bell rings to start class, and he gets to deal with the problem of trying to settle down fifteen wild animals masquerading as sweet little girls. Much easier than trying to puzzle out rockstars.

*

Lucy delivers another packed lunch to Liam on Tuesday, and a third on Wednesday as well, each featuring a new combination of sandwich, fruit, and biscuit flavor. The lunch on Wednesday comes with a note:

_It would be helpful if you told us what sort of things you like. ☺ —H_

During lunch hour that day, when Liam’s meant to be working— he’s still got a list a mile long of chaperones to confirm for the field trip— on Friday, oh god, it’s nearly here— instead he’s eating the sandwich and making faces at the two notes from Harry. They’re both pinned open on his desk blotter, held down with a stapler and a paperweight in the shape of an apple, respectively.

It’s not that it’s a bad sandwich: turkey on rye, with some kind of pesto mayo that’s quite lovely— excellent choice by ‘Lucy,’ that— it’s only that Liam is still very confused. He was confused from the moment Harry Styles shifted his long legs out of his Range Rover, truth be told, and it’s only got worse since then.

Liam slants his eyes between the notes and the list a few times, chewing slowly. By the end of the hour he’s talked himself into it. He pulls his mobile out of the drawer, lemon biscuits crammed in his mouth as he flicks through his contacts, finding the one he wants.

 _you know what would honestly be really helpful?_ he sends.

*

Tatton Park is one of those thousand-acre National Trust places, very historical and impressive. Liam hadn’t been the one to select it, actually, the students had held a vote— the whole process had all been very democratic and educational, even if Liam had personally been rooting for the zoo— but here they are at Tatton, staring at the picturesque gardens, and herds of fallow deer that are as tame as city pigeons, and a beautiful manor home full of preserved furnishings and spritely elderly volunteers who could tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the gilded Gillows sofas. There’s even a petting zoo on the estate somewhere; Liam supposes he’ll trade pigs and goats for tigers and monkeys if he must. 

All of these selling features end up not amounting to much; it turns out that most of the girls had voted on this place because of something called the _Adventure Playground_. Right off the bus Liam has to organize a rotation system so that all the kids can get a crack at the playground without overwhelming either the staff or the poor tourist families on holiday who hadn’t realized they were going to be overrun by screaming schoolgirls.

Liam has his own hands full of screaming schoolgirls, along with adults that require nearly as much supervision, and he doesn’t even really see Harry until sometime later in the morning. It’s during the brief eye of a very carefully-controlled storm— his authority or assistance or decision-making skills somehow not in demand for a span of ten whole minutes— and he’s taking advantage of the break to sort out a few stacks of park leaflets and maps that’ve got mixed up in all the chaos.

“This place is amazing,” Styles says, strolling up from what Liam thinks is the direction of the gift shop— he’s not entirely sure, he’s been working from the reception area like it’s a field base on a battleground ever since they arrived.

“Where’s your group?” Liam asks, slightly alarmed. Harry is here as a chaperone, after all, and in addition to Lord Cuthbert’s daughter, there’s also Lucy in his group. Liam’s heart-rate kicks up a bit as he starts peering against the sun, looking over Harry’s shoulder for the kids. It’s a perfect sunny day even in the middle of October, like one last gasp of summer, but Liam feels all the warmth leave his body when Harry just shrugs, saying,

“Somewhere about, I expect. They mentioned something about swimming in the lake an hour or so back. Want a bird’s nest?” Harry hefts a paper bag, showing off a small horde of what looks to be fried chow mein noodles smothered in chocolate. He’s already got one in his hand, munching away all casual and nonchalant, like Liam’s life isn’t beginning to flash before his eyes—

Harry starts laughing, hard enough that he has to lean down and brace his hands against his knees or keep staggering, and Liam just stares at him, thinking that maybe rock musicians really do fry their brains with too much booze and drugs; it’s tragic, really—

And Harry’s gasping, “Your face, mate, it’s perfect—” before Liam finally gets it. He whirls around, still clutching a stack of Junior Park Explorer maps to his chest like a lifeline, and right on the front steps of the mansion he sees them: Harry’s group, three girls from Liam’s class plus Lucy, all of them neatly lined up in front of the tour guide, even, about to head inside the house.

Liam turns back to Harry— trying to scowl, but he’s too relieved, so it probably doesn’t sound like much of a reprimand when Liam tells him, “That was very mean.”

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Harry says, but he’s still chuckling, so it doesn’t sound like much of an apology, either. “You’ve been stuck here all morning, haven’t you? Should take a break, bro; come with us.”

“On the furniture tour?”

“Yes, on the furniture tour,” Harry echoes, back to his normal drawl. He’s straightened up, too, and Liam absolutely doesn’t notice the way the unbuttoned neck of Harry’s dove-gray top shows off the tattoos at his collarbones, even more ink staining his arms where his sleeves have been rolled up. It’s just the first time Liam’s seen Harry dressed in anything that doesn’t look like he picked it up off the floor of a tourbus, is all. Harry’s saying, “Come on, it’ll be a laugh. You’ve been in the sun too long, Liam.”

Liam chews his lip, considering it— he really ought to be available to all the chaperones, is the thing, but the manor is just right here, he won’t be very far— and he can leave directions of where to find him at the front desk, and all the parents on the trip have Liam’s mobile number—

“Lucy really wants you to come,” Harry says, cajoling, and Liam goes under like a dingy with too many holes in its keel.

“I do enjoy a good gilded sofa,” Liam tells Harry, grinning.

“That’s the spirit,” Harry says, and walks towards him, hooking his arm through Liam’s, steering them both towards the steps and the waiting kids. Liam ignores the pounding of his heart in favor of trying to keep track of what Harry’s saying— he seems to jump topics like a salmon jumping upstream. One minute he’s like, “Really, mate, try one of these bird nests, my stylist got me hooked on them, we found the greatest candy shop in Amsterdam, it was brilliant—” and the next minute he’s already on to, “I swear I saw a china cabinet just like that in this villa in Nice this one time, or maybe it was Naples; either way, there was a lot of wine going around—”

If Liam ends up paying more attention to Harry’s rambling conversation than what the tour guide is trying to tell them, well, it’s only that Liam feels if you’ve seen one 17th century chaise lounge, you’ve seen them all, pretty much. 

There was a large sign at the front of the stately home saying ‘No Food or Drink,’ but Harry keeps furtively slipping the girls sweets from his bag, making exaggerated winking faces and holding a ringed finger to his grinning mouth whenever the tour guide turns her back. Liam tries not to have pessimistic thoughts about chocolate handprints on antique wallpaper, or getting the academy banned from Tatton Park for life, choosing instead to run interference with their guide when necessary, getting rewarded by Harry leveling those conspiratorial grins at him, too.

It’s all a bit much. Rather than feeling sorted out by having more time in Styles’ acquaintance, as Liam had hoped he might, things are turning out to be just the opposite. Liam’s stomach is in a Gordian knot by the end of the tour. He might be a bit off his head, even, which is probably why when Harry moves to go buy Lucy an ice cream from the stand the second they’re free from the house, Liam unthinkingly puts his foot down about it.

“Harry, you can’t,” Liam says, quick and impatient with him. “She’s just had like twenty of those nest things, she’ll be sick.”

Liam regrets it the instant he says it, remembering his ‘never interfere with the parents’ policy too late. But Harry just takes Liam’s criticism in stride, hardly even batting an eye. He turns to Lucy, telling her, “Sorry, Lucy-goose, you heard him. Mr. P says no ice cream.”

She pouts a bit, but seems to have as much skill for rolling with things as her father does. Rather than throwing a fit as most other thwarted four year-olds might’ve done, she brightens and asks, “Can we go see the animals now, Mr. P?”

She has one free hand that she’s not clinging to her dad with, and she eels it into Liam’s own, sticky fingers tucking into his palm as she gazes up at him with those pleading doe eyes. It’s nothing she hasn’t done dozens of times over at school, but Liam suddenly finds himself as a bookend on Lucy Styles’ little family of two, and he feels a bit like he’s been hit over the head with a sledgehammer from it.

It turns out Emilia Cuthbert wants in on the petting zoo action, and soon the other girls in the group take up the clamor. Liam must agree to the plan, because the next thing Liam’s aware of is seeing Lucy tear free to all but dive alongside Emmy into a litter of piglets and Liam’s leaning against a fence to watch with a huge smile plastered on his face that he doesn’t remember starting.

There’s the sound of a shutter-click from his right. Liam turns, startled, to see Harry holding up his mobile to Liam, obviously just taken a picture.

“Pardon?” Liam says. He’s lost his footing somewhere between stepping off the school bus and here, and he doesn’t know where to step to put himself back on the map of things that make sense.

“Sorry, hang on,” Harry says, distracted, attention on his phone for a minute, typing like he’s sending a text. Liam must be doing something with his face— or maybe he just looks like he feels— because when Harry glances up again he grins, saying, “You don’t mind, do you? Just had to show a few mates something.” 

“Show them what?” 

“They’re just jerks,” Harry drawls, leaning next to Liam along the fence. “Keep saying I’m exaggerating when I tell ‘em Lucy’s teacher is a bit of alright.”

Before Liam can respond— before he can do much more than feel his eyebrows knitting together in a deep and probably very attractive furrow— Harry’s swinging his legs over the fence, whipping out his camera-phone again, calling out directions to his kid: “Lucy, Luce, grab that small one with the curly tail— no, not him, the muddier one.”

A few minutes later Liam gets called away to solve a crisis involving the lunch set-up— picnic areas get crowded out by the deer herds here, apparently— and he looks back over his shoulder to see a group of what must be fans breaking away from feeding goats to try and get pictures with Harry, circling around him, holding out their maps and other bits and bobs to be signed. Liam doesn’t look back again after that. In the midst of a hectic day it’s easy to dismiss Harry’s comment as a fluke, Liam filing it away in his mind under all the other nice things that he might vaguely want but doesn’t necessarily need to have— like a jetski, or a Rolex.

Liam never gets a chance to sit down and eat lunch with everyone else. After he gets the deer stampede sorted, he then has to go track down a wayward group that’ve wandered out of bounds to the other end of the estate, and after that there’s another near disaster: too many groups trying to use the Adventure Playground at the same time, all but staging a reenactment of Waterloo underneath the monkey bars before Liam wades in to stop it. By that point in the afternoon, it’s finally time for Liam to go about the business of rounding everyone up in the car park, getting them onto the proper coaches— one chaperone making Liam’s job particularly difficult by nearly leading his kids onto a coach headed out for Manchester. Basically it’s sheer luck that keeps Liam from seeing more of either Styles for the rest of the trip.

He’s just deposited himself into a seat at the front of the coach, last person on, doors shutting behind him and the motors revving up to take them home, and Liam’s sighing at the relief of thinking he’s got away free as much as getting off his feet after being on them for six hours straight.

The relief is premature, though, because they’ve hardly started down the motorway before Harry Styles is dropping into the open seat next to Liam, a woeful expression on his face and a greenish-looking Lucy clutched in his arms.

“So, you might’ve been right about the sweets,” Harry starts, but Lucy interrupts him.

“Mr. P, I don’t feel so good,” she says, sounding as green as she looks, reminding Liam too much of the time when Pepper had been a pup and got into the bag of dog food in the pantry, eating most of it by the time Liam’d come home from classes. He’d been cleaning the carpet for days.

“Should we go to hospital?” Harry asks Liam, anxious. “Should I ask the driver to pull over?” 

Liam does his best not to laugh, biting into his lip, but he must be giving something away because Harry’s scraping his curls away from his forehead, saying, “You’re looking at me like I’m mental, mate.”

“Just, here, let me—” Liam says, tactfully, and he takes the situation in hand— he’s good at taking situations in hand, is the thing— and ten minutes later he’s got Lucy sucking on mints to help with the nausea, a damp handkerchief on the back of her neck, and he’s distracting her from her upset tummy even more by flipping through pictures of Tony and Pepper on his phone, narrating each one in a low, calm voice. 

Five minutes after that and she’s drifting off, eyelashes fluttering shut as she talks herself to sleep, telling Liam a rambling story about a pet bunny she wants to get and name Arabella Butterfly. Liam’s not sure as to why— probably because she’s very much her father’s daughter, he reckons. 

“You’re a proper miracle-worker,” Harry tells him after Lucy’s zonked out. He’s murmuring so’s not to disturb her, but he still sounds unmistakably impressed.

Liam’s back to feeling chagrined, though, remembering too much of what had happened earlier, the way he’d overstepped himself so badly. “Look, I should, er— I should really apologise for before— with the ice cream,” he clarifies, when Harry looks puzzled.

Harry waves it off, even going back to looking woeful. “Nah, bro, you’ve got nothing to be sorry for— clearly you were right, yeah?” He nods in the direction of Liam’s lap. Lucy’s curled up sleeping there, a heavy warm weight in his arms, having crawled over to better see the pictures on Liam’s phone.

“Would you believe me if I said I’m not usually such a shit dad?” Harry goes on like he’s confiding, plucking at threads in the ripped knee of his jeans. “Have a hard time shaking off the guilt the first few weeks back from tour.”

“Guilt?”

“Lord, Liam— you should have seen me after our first tour. I was a proper wreck. I came home and bought Luce a pony.”

Liam’s mouth drops open. “You never did.”

“Oh, I absolutely did,” Harry answers, his tone grim, his eyes lighting up with the joke. “My mum made me give it back, though. Luce was just turned one— didn’t even notice, thank god.”

Liam can’t help himself— he cracks up laughing, unable to hold it in. But he tries to at least laugh quietly, shoulders shaking with his mirth, wrist over his mouth to muffle it.

“I’m glad you find my failures as a father amusing,” Harry says, playing offended, but he’s grinning as he does.

Lucy stirs from the jostling, muttering something indecipherable. Liam moves to soothe her back to sleep. His hand sinks into the wispy lamb’s wool of her hair as he strokes it, and he thinks for a brief moment about this ride going on long into the night— long past the sun setting, past the scheduled hour when they’re all meant to step off and go home. He thinks about getting to keep this strange bubble of time for just a tiny bit longer than he ought to be able to keep it.

Liam catches Harry’s eyes on him when he looks back up. They’ve gone thoughtful, dark under hooded lashes, and Harry’s grin has shrunk down to a small smile that’s only curving up the corner of his mouth; just a soft, featherweight thing. Liam doesn’t know what to do with a smile like that— doesn’t know if it’s even meant for him or for Lucy. He looks out the window, swallowing around an unexpected lump in his throat, watching the Cheshire countryside melt away into streaks of green.

*

Liam’s eating at his desk— turkey and swiss today, with surprise bacon, and Liam might’ve honestly kissed Styles had he been in the room when Liam first bit into it— but it’s the second week of packed lunches that Lucy’s brought in for him and Liam’s beginning to worry that this joke they’ve got running might actually go on for a lot longer than he’d been expecting. 

Not that Liam had been expecting any of it, but still— Styles can’t keep thinking that if he doesn’t feed Liam he’ll wither away and starve, or whatever strange notion it is that Lucy’s dad’s got into his head. It isn’t a fair trade; especially since Liam’s not given anything back at all. He chews his bacon morosely, trying to figure out a polite way of turning down any more of these lunches that he really, really likes eating. 

His mobile chimes with a message and he whips it out of the drawer, glad for the distraction. Maybe if it’s Andy, Liam can pester him for advice. Andy’s advice is mostly shit, but Liam likes to use it as a waymarker for the things he ought to avoid doing.

It’s not Andy— it’s the sandwich-maker himself. 

_you’re on lunch hour, aren’t you?_

Liam shoves his sandwich into his mouth, leaving both hands free to type his reply, though it still comes out a bit sloppy. _yea and this bacon sarnie is th real deeeal can’t say thnx enouf_

His mobile rings in his hand a few seconds later, buzzing against his palm. Liam tries not to choke, hands fumbling as he tries to accept the call and lift it to his ear at the same time.

 _“You’re more than welcome, mate,”_ Harry’s voice drifts over the line, a weight to it like there isn’t in person, this treacley rasp that Liam’s ears strain towards as if wanting more of it.

“Hey, everything all right?” Liam asks, figuring there must be a reason why Harry would be calling in the middle of the day. Liam’s stomach drops, lunch sitting like a pile of stones in it, already imagining some sort of family emergency— please don’t let him have to take any sort of bad news to Lucy, he couldn’t do it, he just couldn’t—

 _“Yeah, I’m in town, actually— London, I mean, sorry— at the record label, we had this meeting about a thing for the album—”_ and Harry proceeds to explain whatever the thing is, in detail, for two minutes, after which Liam still has absolutely no idea what Harry’s talking about. Harry then follows that up with, _“and Marco’s gone all stroppy at Zayn over Zayn not liking his recording schedule, and Zayn’s having a sulk in the office, and Niall’s trying to talk him round but it’ll probably be a good while, least half a pack of Marlboros worth, I reckon— anyway, long story short—”_ Liam doesn’t snort, but it’s hard, _“I’ve got stuck here for a few hours longer than I’d thought, I’m really sorry.”_

“Oh, well,” Liam says, unsure as to why Harry would feel the need to explain himself to Liam, least of all since Liam doesn’t know any of the circumstances or the people Harry’s just mentioned. He tries to come across as generous and understanding, though he’s just relieved no one’s died. “Not a big deal. These things happen, yeah?”

_“Thanks, mate. I’ve already sent a text to Gemma, but I’ll call her soon as I ring off with you. If she leaves from her work early, she can make it over to the school to pick up Luce— might be fifteen or twenty minutes late with the traffic.”_

“Ah, that’s— is your mum not free?” 

_“On holiday in Brighton,”_ Harry answers, still sounding apologetic. _“Bit more out of reach than Gems. Is it too long to stay after? I can try to figure something out, let me—”_

And Liam says, “No, it’s fine, it’s really— listen, are you sure you ought to go to all that trouble? I could— I could take Lucy home, yeah? Be loads easier for me than for your sister, innit?”

Liam’s surprised himself with the offer, but it’s even more surprising how readily Harry leaps on it, relief coloring his voice through the phone line as he says, _“Really? That would be a life-saver, bro, you’ve no idea. Are you sure?”_

“Yeah, absolutely.” Liam shuffles a few papers around on his desk, trying not to think about how many staff guidelines he’s going to be skirting with this little home-delivery maneuver. He clears his throat, going for his brimming-with-confidence voice— the one he saves for job interviews, and for telling small children that he one-hundred percent knows why the sky is blue, ‘course he does, it’s just you’re not allowed to know the secret till you’re old enough— “Tony and Pep’ll hardly miss me if I’m home a bit late.”

_“Thank you so much. I’ll buy them a bone to make up for it— a hundred bones, even.”_

“Hundred might be a bit excessive,” Liam tells him, grinning. Overhead, the bell chimes signal that lunch is over, and Liam swears. “Shit, that’s the bell. Er— I mean, shoot.”

 _“Dirty mouth, hey, Liam?”_ Harry says, his own laugh dropping in a way that manages to make Liam bite his lip around a grin, glancing around the empty classroom as if the school’s deputy head is there to hear, to see Liam reacting like Harry’s flirting with him— which, of course he isn’t, not really. _“Secret’s safe with me, I promise. Alright, I’ll let you go. Thanks again, Liam.”_

Liam tells him bye and they hang up, leaving Liam to gnaw on his lip and stare at his mobile afterwards, wondering if he could have possibly fallen asleep at his desk and dreamed all that happening; the fuzzy feeling left in his head seems evidence enough for it. He jumps up only when the warning bells chime, and has to sprint down the hallway to fetch his students back from the playground before he’s the one who’s massively late.

*

When they’ve made it through the rest of the day and Liam’s set the kids to tidying and gathering their things, he goes over to Lucy to give her the news that her dad’s not going to make it to pick her up today. 

He’d been all braced and prepared, expecting to see her face fall like a sad puppy’s, but just the opposite happens— she lights up like Christmas, cheering and hugging him, seemingly thrilled with the idea of her teacher taking her home. Liam can’t quite fathom it, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t relieved.

He ends up moving back to his desk to furtively slip his mobile from the drawer before the bell actually rings; the kids are lining up and done for the day, so Liam doesn’t see the harm, and Harry might’ve texted again. It turns out he has done, twice:

_Gemma says I owe you sexual favors, reckon she’s not wrong._

_Luce should have a key in her backpack and the alarm code is her birthday, thanks loads, seriously, really do owe you one mate._

Liam makes a face at his phone, but the bell saves him from having to reply, and he hustles to gather all the girls to leave. 

Lucy sticks to his side like a pint-sized shadow while Liam stands on pick-up duty, clinging to Liam’s hand and waving off her mates with her free one, blissfully unaware of the fact that Liam’s been mentally kicking himself off a cliff ever since the first car rolled up the drive— because Liam hasn’t got his own car, has he? He’d sold his car to Andy when he’d moved to Cheshire, hadn’t he, and bought his bicycle then, and been so proud to be all environmentally conscious, and economical, and healthy and shit.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Liam asks Lucy, once the car park and the drive have emptied out to just them. “How far is your house from here, d’you reckon?” 

Lucy shrugs. “Pretty far. On the other side of the country, maybe?”

The other side of the country would indeed be a bit far for biking, but Liam’s fairly confident that’s not actually the case. “Wanna dig out your key for me, button? Your dad says you’ve got one in your bag.”

“Oh, I do!” she says, setting her backpack down to unzip and paw through it, spilling a small heap things onto the lawn in the process: crayon drawings, tissue flowers that they’d made in craft time last week, her maths workbook. But she emerges with the key, handing it over, and Liam’s relieved to find there’s a plastic address tag attached to the keyring. Even better is that he knows the neighbourhood and it’s not very far at all.

They go back to the classroom so that Liam can fetch his satchel and leave an apologetic note for the cleaner since Liam won’t be able to finish the tidying up for today, and then they make one more pit stop at the school’s lost and found office. They get lucky enough to find a bicycle helmet that fits Lucy— she doesn’t mind that it’s got Pixar’s _Cars_ characters on it, meant for a boy, she says it’s wicked— and then they’re off to the bike rack out front.

He’s stooping to take off the chain when Lucy asks, like it’s just dawning on her, “Excuse me, teacher, where’s your helmet?” Liam ducks his face over the combination lock, hiding a wince. 

“Don’t need one, do I? Got a steel plate in my head,” Liam bluffs, wide smile, rapping his knuckles on his head to demonstrate. “Got it put in when I was a tot like you— ran into a tree on my bike and cracked my skull right open.” He tries to mitigate the lie with a lesson; something he spends many hours of the day doing, as a school teacher, so he doesn’t feel particularly guilty about it. 

Truth is Liam just doesn’t like wearing helmets— too much mussing of his hair. He knows it’s irresponsible of him, but he’s already got his affairs sorted in case of the worst, anyway: if anything ever happens to Liam then the dogs’ll go to his ex, Dan, because they’d pinky-swore on it; his sister Ruth will take the house. That’s everything that matters, right there.

Lucy is quite impressed with Liam’s steel-plate skull. He hopes she won’t feel the need to repeat it to her dad, but— oh well, if she does. By this point in their acquaintance, Liam’s pretty sure he’s been labeled as silly beyond repair in Styles’ eyes.

Liam straightens up, posing with his hands on his hips. “Right, so, first things first. This is very important: have you ever ridden a bike before?”

“Yeesss,” she says, drawing it out and bouncing in her purple trainers, her messy topknot of curls listing to the side with the movement. “Loads and loads of times!”

“Excellent, that’s good news. Alright, this model might be a bit tall for you, so you’ll have to stand to reach the pedals, yeah? And mind the balance as you steer, please, ‘cause I’ll be quite heavy on the handlebars.”

She’s laughing in a delighted-outraged way by the time he’s done, smart enough to have caught on to the joke. “Noooo, I’m on the handlebars, Mr. P,” she says.

“You sure about that?” he says, furrowing his eyebrows together. “Didn’t you say you were a bicycle expert? Didn’t you ride your bike all the way across the Himalayas?”

“I didn’t do that!”

He tsks at her, clucking his tongue. “That’s no good then. Suppose I’d best do the steering for us. Alright, darling, helmet on.” She plops the borrowed helmet on her head, and he helps her with the strap under her chin as she winds down from her giggling fit. 

She sits on the handlebars with enough confidence to prove she probably has ridden a bike as many times as she claims, and any fears that Liam might have had over her being nervous with this are banished before they’re even out of sight from the school, gone with the way Lucy’s squealing in delight, already demanding that he go faster. Liam’s more nervous than she is, honestly, but it’s a country lane with hardly any cars around. He could pick up the pace a bit, probably, and still be safe.

“Not fast enough for you, huh?” The breeze is curling against his face with chilly October fingers, but Liam doesn’t dare lift a hand up from the grips to turn his collar of his coat up against his neck, even if he’s steered his bike with just his knees on plenty of occasions before. His mouth feels cold as he grins over the top of her head, cottage after cottage passing by them like a film reel of warm colors and painted white flower boxes. 

“What d’you reckon, then—” he asks her, “Ferrari fast? Aeroplane fast? Speed boat, spaceship? Flying unicorn?”

“Spaceship!” she says.

“That’s my girl,” Liam tells her, laughing, and Lucy’s high-pitched cheers [whistle past his ears](https://31.media.tumblr.com/ab48399803a0544a93bf49981ed0e76f/tumblr_mzj4mkSlB51ql9qomo2_500.png) as he does pick up the speed, just for her.

*

The Styles residence isn’t the largest estate in the neighbourhood, but it’s not the smallest, either. It certainly dwarfs Liam’s little cottage by a fair margin. But for an internationally famous musician with hit records coming out of his ears, and even more money besides, Liam supposes it could be considered modest. 

It’s clear from how close it is to Puddington Lake that the nearness was probably a deciding factor— only a ten minute trip by bike, and Liam thinks he could run it in less than twenty, maybe, from his own place— especially if he takes the shortcut across Farmer Meath’s sheep pastures— and Liam stops himself right there, nipping that train of thought in the bud. It’s not his fault: his brain automatically figures jogging routes around the village, can’t help it.

He leaves his bike against the privet hedge out front and lets them inside, feeling awkward, a bit like a thief. Lucy treats her home as home, of course, skipping through the foyer, shedding her backpack and her school blazer and her trainers as she goes. Liam trails in her wake, picking up after her, not really knowing what else to do with himself.

Lucy takes him by the hand, giving him a tour of the house such that only a four year-old can give: she points out the living room, and the telly, and the Wii, and her stacks of Disney movies, and the fireplace, and the framed pictures of Aunt Gemma and Grandma Anne holding her when she was a baby, bobble hat and everything— and her and her dad, of course, but Liam can’t let himself look at those ones for too long— and she skips right over the trio of platinum albums hanging on the wall. 

Liam stays stuck on them, distracted while Lucy moves on down the hallway, but seeing Harry’s name printed on the label brings Liam back enough to pull his mobile out from his coat pocket, winging off a quick text to Harry.

 _Home :)_ Liam sends, and a minute later he has to correct himself, unable to let it stand as is: _your daughter i mean_.

“Mr. P, come look at my room,” Lucy insists, coming back to fetch him. Liam is halfway through meeting Lucy’s very large collection of stuffed animals when his mobile buzzes with Harry’s reply, obviously sent while driving—

_Brilliant on the motorway be there ina min. Help urslf to anything in the kitchen for tea x_

The kitchen is Liam’s favorite room of the house so far. Like everything else it’s been remodeled somewhat recently, modernized with marble surfaces and posh stainless-steel appliances, but it also looks more worn in than the rest of the house does— bread crumbs on the island, tea towel over a cabinet handle, even a crockery biscuit jar in the shape of a rooster taking a place of honor on the countertop.

Liam finally sheds his coat, leaves it draped over the stool next to where Lucy’s sat swinging her legs and beaming at him. “Your dad says he’ll be home soon. Want a snack to tide you over, sweetheart?” Liam asks.

“Yes please,” she chirps. It’s should be odd— he’s making himself comfortable in the home of Harry Styles, the super idol, the paparazzi-hounded celebrity— but as Liam rolls up his sleeves, poking into different cabinets to look for plates, the oddest thing is only how quickly he’d normalised: all the awkwardness he’d felt when he’d first stepped in already gone, like a plane cabin pressurising at high altitude.

“I want pineapple juice! And biscuits, please,” Lucy tells him — so politely that Liam doesn’t try to coax her into anything healthier; he’d had the exact same after-school snack when he was her age, anyway, even down to the chocolate Hobnobs that he plates up for her. She hops off her stool to come help, rummaging around in one of the lower cabinets until she pulls out a pink Hello Kitty tea set.

“Let’s use this, okay?” she says. Liam has a feeling he knows what’s coming next.

*

“Would you care for some more tea, Mrs. Fluffykins?” Liam asks, sure he’s the picture of refined table manners and grace, but Lucy still rolls her eyes at him, anyway. 

“Nooo, Mrs. Fluffykins is the white bunny, see,” she tells him, pointing, her small hand decked out in enough costume rings to knock out a prize fighter in one jab. In spite of his faux pas, she’s been patient with him, seemingly content to teach her teacher for once. Liam reckons he’ll be a proper tea party expert by the end of this.

He’s already got his napkin folded the proper way in his lap, and his pinky jutted out just so as he pinches the delicate handle of his Hello Kitty teacup, and he’s been formally introduced to all the tea party high society. There’s Mrs. Fluffykins, Dipper, and Countess Whiskerface to Liam’s left, and on his right are the esteemed Kitten Mittens, Miss Periwinkle (who’d Liam mistaken for Mrs. Fluffykins, but she doesn’t seem much offended), and finally the well-loved Buddy in the chair closest to Lucy’s at their little table. Buddy is a stuffed bear so old and worn that he’s missing one of his black button eyes, but Lucy doesn’t seem to love him any less for it.

Everyone’s decked out for the occasion— Liam included— feather boas, fluffy tulle tutus, costume jewellry in every color of the rainbow, the works. Liam’s a bit in awe; as a lad he’d thought himself proper imaginative if he made forts for his action figures out of a shoebox, tied a tablecloth around his neck for a cape. Little girls take playtime to a whole other level, though.

“‘Ofer here, young man, more tea vud be luffly,’” Lucy’s saying, speaking for Countess Whiskerface in what’s actually a very good Russian accent, rolled R’s and everything. Liam startles to hear it, but still reaches over to pour the tea. Lucy had informed him— in a whisper— that the stuffed animals don’t really drink tea, just pretend to; Liam and Lucy can drink it, only they have to pretend their pineapple juice is actually tea. There are a lot of rules to this game, he’s discovered.

“Oh, pardon, I didn’t know you were— er, from Russia, Countess,” he says to the stuffed ginger cat.

“Countess Whiskerface is from _Prague_ ,” Lucy tells him, speaking for herself again. “Here, I can show you!” She gets up from the table in a jangle of necklaces and bracelets, bouncing over to a white dresser in the corner. She returns with the map that she and Liam had worked on together while her dad was still away on tour, the one with the gold stars stuck in as markers for all the places Harry had been. Liam still marvels over the amount of stars they’d got to add in just six weeks.

“Right here, this is where Daddy got me Countess Whiskerface,” Lucy says. She points out Prague on the map, gold star under her fingertip with no hesitation— Liam’s not even sure he could have done it as fast. Only scraped by with a passing mark in Geography, hadn’t he.

“Does your dad bring you back a new friend from every place he visits?” Liams asks, genuinely curious. It would certainly help explain the amount she has of them.

“Not everywhere,” Lucy says, legs kicking up behind her a bit as she leans her weight on the small table, and then she says, “Sometimes Daddy’s fans in other countries will give him presents, but he gives them all to charity.”

“Isn’t that nice of him,” Liam says. He hides his smile— he’s pretty sure the petulant look on her face is for the fact that her dad doesn’t bring all the presents home for Lucy to reap the benefits. He adds, “Can’t imagine he’d be able to fit the loads of things he gets into his luggage, after all.”

“That’s true,” Lucy agrees, nodding. “Daddy has a _lot_ of fans.”

Liam doesn’t bother tamping down his grin anymore, flashing it at her as he reaches over to straighten her tiara from where it’s gone lopsided with the force of her nods. “Bet you’re his biggest one, huh, button?”

“Yeah. He’s alright,” Lucy says, shrugging, and Liam bursts out laughing. 

“Thanks for the ringing endorsement, kid,” comes Harry’s voice from the door, and Liam whirls around so quick he nearly topples out of the child-size chair he’s been perched on.

Lucy jumps up, bouncing over to cling to her dad’s legs. “Hi, Daddy!”

“Hey, runt,” Harry tells her, looking down. “Have you been a good host for our guest?” He’s dressed like he’s just come in from outside, coat and beanie on, a thick wool scarf hanging half-unwrapped around his neck. Liam wonders just how long he’s been stood there listening to them; had Harry come down the hallway, hands stilling on his scarf as he’d picked up Lucy and Liam’s voices? Had he been chuckling to himself over Liam’s failed attempts to hold a teacup and saucer the proper way?

“Yes! We’ve been playing tea party!”

“I can see that— looks like a right wicked time.” Harry’s eyes finally slide to Liam’s. Harry grins at him in a half-wry way, a way that shares the joke between the two adults in the room, the quirk of Harry’s upturned mouth saying: ‘Been in your shoes plenty of times before, mate.’

Liam stands, offering a smile back, and belatedly remembers to unwind the neon-purple feather boa from around his shoulders as he does. He looks around for a second, wondering where to leave it; after a beat he drapes it over Buddy the Bear, saying, “It was very nice to meet you.”

“Okay, goose,” Harry says to Lucy, “I’ve got to chat to your teacher for a bit. D’you have any homework?”

“She does— maths and grammar, both,” Liam answers for her, grinning as Lucy groans and flops back down into her chair at the tea table. Nothing’s quite so fun as making kids do homework, he’s found. He doesn’t know if it’s the reversal from his own youth, when he’d been the one groaning over it, or something else. Andy reckons all teachers are a tiny bit sadistic, which Liam’s still debating over; hasn’t fully discounted it, though.

Harry leaves Lucy with a promise to deliver a surprise from uncle Niall if she finishes all her work before dinner, and he and Liam head out, Harry leaning in once they’re in the hallway to confide in a murmur, “It’s only a half-eaten muffin— think he nicked it off craft services and forgot it was in his bag, to be honest.” 

“Your secret’s safe with me,” Liam says, remembering only after the words are out of his mouth the texts he’d exchanged with Harry at lunchtime. Harry shoots a Liam a quick sidelong look, mouth quirking again, and before he can speak Liam barrels on with the dullest topic he can think of, asking, “How was the traffic out of London?”

“Oh, it was horrid. Which is typical. I saw your bike out by the gate— do you drive, Liam?”

“Er, I can if I like? I mean, I have my driving license and all. But I don’t own a car, you’ve caught me.”

They’ve made it back to the kitchen, and Liam’s just getting a hand on his coat as Harry’s moving over to the counter, flicking the kettle on, pulling out the makings for a real pot of tea. Liam tucks his hands into his trouser pockets, watching Harry, and leaves his coat where it is. 

Harry’s saying, “I like that, that green lifestyle stuff. Would love to be greener myself, but with work being based in London and all— and I can’t really take the train, can I. Oh, we bought carbon offsets for our last tour, did you know? Got the inspiration from a few other bands. Thirty Seconds to Mars, have you heard of them? They’re well hard, love their stuff— anyway, it’s a lovely idea, the offsets, like you can buy back your carbon footprint a bit.”

Liam’s been nodding along like he’s following, inwardly resolving to Google ‘carbon footprint’ when he gets home— sounds like something out of one of the Star Wars films, maybe. Harry asks Liam how he takes his tea, then passes him a mug over the island, afterwards leaning against it with his hands flat to the countertop. The silver of the rings on his fingers is so bright in contrast to the marble that’s the same charcoal-black as his tattoos. 

Liam looks up, blinking, when he realizes Harry’s asked him another question. “Sorry, what was that?”

Harry’s mouth curls up, cheek hinting towards his dimple, a tease that’s not quite followed through. “The house, did Luce give you the grand tour?”

“Ah, yes, she was on it. I saw the sights.” Liam smiles back, wanting to be polite. “You have a lovely home.”

Harry waves a hand, dismissive. “It’s too massive for just the two of us, really. She didn’t show you any of the spare rooms? Nothin’ in ‘em, right, not even furniture. We just moved in before the start of the tour— for Lucy’s school, to be closer to my mum.” 

“That must be nice, to have family so close.”

“It’s everything,” Harry nods, serious, and Liam’s eyes skip away from him, back down to the countertop. Liam lifts his neglected tea, taking a long swallow from it. Not sweet enough, but that’s Liam’s fault, isn’t it, for always saying one sugar when he wants five.

“I’ll tell you why I really bought this place, though,” Harry says. “It’s the basement. Biggest I’ve ever seen— just, like, massive.”

“Fan of basements, are you?”

Harry laughs. “Not like that. I've just had a whole recording studio installed, actually, we’re going to do most of the new album here. It’s gonna be sick, mate.” He seems genuinely enthused— reminding Liam a bit of Lucy showing off her dolls, especially when Harry suggests, “Want to check it out? I’ve got in this digital mixer thing from Sweden, I think they told me Lady Gaga uses the same one.”

“I would— but I should get going, sorry,” Liam says, chugging his tea. “Check the dogs haven't dug up the garden, all that.” This time he does pick up his coat. He’s lingered too long if the idea of playtime in Harry’s basement sounds more appealing than any other offer Liam’s heard in a fair while. 

“Right,” Harry agrees, walking with Liam to the front door. “I owe them for keeping you, don't I? You sure you can't stay for supper?”

Liam pauses in shrugging on his coat at the sudden suggestion, fingers frozen at the back of his neck turning his collar up. He can picture it so clearly, is the thing: helping Harry slice the vegetables, chatting over a glass of wine, bumping hips as Liam leans in to see what Harry’s got in the frying pan, calling Lucy out from her room to help set the table. 

Liam ducks his head down, finishing fussing with his coat. He has to clear his throat before he can trust himself to speak. He says, slowly, “Maybe next time, yeah?”

Harry braces against his grip on the frame of the door as he leans back into the house, calling, “Luce, come say bye to your teacher.”

At the summons Lucy comes shooting down the hallway, skidding into Harry's arms. He hoists her up, and without missing a beat, he holds her out so that she can smack a kiss onto Liam’s cold cheek. 

“Bye, Mr. P!” she tells him. “Can we ride your bike tomorrow, too?”

They’re coming at him from every angle. Liam feels besieged. “We’ll have to see,” he answers, hoping he doesn’t sound as flustered as he feels. He adds, “I’ll see you at school, button, alright? Night, Harry.”

“Night, Liam. Thank you again. Say thanks, runt, ” Harry says, and Lucy waves goodbye from the cradle of her dad’s arms.

“Thank you!”

Liam has never been gladder to escape from anywhere in his life.

*

Two days later, after school's ended, Harry comes up to Liam as he’s standing pick-up duty, this time towing Lucy along in his wake instead of the other way round. 

“Hey, Liam,” Harry says, meeting him with a smile. “Listen, I just wanted to say again how grateful I am for you dropping Lucy home on Wednesday.” 

Liam scratches at his chin, thinking it’s the rasp of his stubble that’s itching, but his fingertips come away flecked with dried paint. Well— that’d be from the model of the solar system they’d started in class today. He keeps his smile screwed in place, thinking that this must be his fated lot. 

“It was really nothing,” he says. “We had loads of fun, huh, sweetheart?” He gives Lucy a wink; least she’s used to seeing Liam with paint and glue and glitter all over himself.

She giggles, and Harry turns out to have more to say. “So, my band,” he tells Liam, “technically we’re like, on a break, but we’ve got this gig in Liverpool next weekend. S’for some charity of Zayn’s— children’s hospital, I think— and a few of our mates’ll be there. We’ll all be doing just informal sets, maybe some covers and stuff. Really small venue, close crowd, intimate. Should be a sick night.”

“Sounds massive,” Liam says, thinking wistfully about the last time he went to a concert. It’s been longer than he cares to admit— the Watch the Throne tour, wasn’t it, Liam remembers he’d gone with his boyfriend at the time: they’d smoked weed, got off in the toilets, broke up two weeks later. Good times. That’d been back in 2011, though. Maybe Andy’s not entirely wrong about Liam’s rut.

“Here,” Harry says, reaching into his back pocket before handing Liam a pair of tickets. Liam doesn’t know why he didn’t see this coming— really, all the signs were there— but he’s a bit blindsided by it all the same.

“Say you’ll come,” Harry says while Liam’s turning the tickets over in his hands. _‘Olly Murs, Cher Lloyd, Ed Sheeran, Little Mix, Lepidoptra: LIVE IN CONCERT,’_ reads the print, _‘One spooktacular night only! The Frightfully Fun Fundraiser, hosted by BBC Radio 1.’_

“Wow,” Liam says.

“Won’t hear a no about this, bro.”

“I—” Liam hesitates, because it’s on the tip of his tongue to say exactly that— but he does want to go, so much, and he can hear Andy’s voice in his head already, swearing at him for giving up a gift like this. Liam knows he shouldn’t listen to his Andy voice, he really shouldn't; sometimes he can’t help it, though. 

“Suppose I could check my calendar, then,” Liam answers, looking up to match Harry’s grin with his own.

*

Liam keeps the tickets on his fridge, stuck under a magnet that says _#1 Teacher_ that his mum’d got him as a graduation gift, and in the days leading up to the concert Liam keeps waiting for something to change to make it not happen— like a text saying the show’s been cancelled, or a freak meteor shower, or some nameless corrector of Things That Shouldn’t Be popping into Liam’s kitchen to say, “I’ll just have these, cheers,” and vanishing again— like Doctor Who, or whatever.

None of that happens. Saturday arrives, and Tony and Pepper spend a puzzled afternoon shadowing Liam as he paces the house, feeling untethered and restless. He changes his mind about going three different times, and then changes his outfit three times, and right around five o’clock Liam plants his feet in front of his fridge, saying “Fuck it,” out loud. He pockets the tickets, leaving in just barely enough time to make his train.

Liam has the two tickets, obviously, but he ends up going stag. Andy’d already had plans to go to some house party thrown by a girl he fancies from work, and the rest of Liam’s mates aren’t current enough on his life that he wouldn’t have to spend forever trying to explain the convoluted way he came to have the tickets. Just the idea of trying to explain Harry Styles to anyone makes Liam want a nap. At the venue he makes a beeline for a group of fans he sees milling sadly around the front entrance, picking one at random— alright, so she’s wearing a Lepidoptra t-shirt, but Liam thinks it’s only fair considering where the ticket came from— and hands his extra over, saying, “Here, love, you look like you could use this.”

He gets rewarded by the girl flinging herself onto his neck and sobbing for five minutes, which is a bit awkward. After Liam manages to untangle himself— she’s quite strong for a fifteen year-old, he’s impressed— he heads inside. It’s not quite as small as he’d imagined when Harry’d said ‘intimate,’ but it’s not an arena, either. He looks up at the stage, where the technicians are still setting up instruments and equipment, and the fever of excitement finally starts to overcome the jitter of Liam’s nerves. He’s never had first row to any concert before, ever, and it’s so close— the stage is literally right there. The guy who’d showed him his seat had even handed Liam a pair of earplugs he’d had no idea he’d be needing. It’s a bit like being a teenager again, looking around at all the people filing in, already feeling like a part of something. Liam starts bouncing on his toes, just trying to bleed energy, and ends up peeling off his overshirt and tying it around his waist when the venue starts to warm from all the bodies in it. 

When the lights dim down and the performances actually start, all of it gets about a million times better. Most of the artists Liam doesn’t know too well, but there’re a few he’s heard on the telly or the radio before, and he sings along with those, and dances to some of the songs with a heavier bass line, and he lifts his hands when everyone else in the crowd lifts their hands, and sways when they sway, getting caught up in the blood-quickening fever of live music.

Three artists and an hour pass by in a haze. Liam checks his watch during the equipment change for the next band, worrying over the time. It’s not that he expected to be home early, or needs to be— he’d already fed and walked the dogs before he’d left— but too much longer and he won’t be able to make a train home.

Liam doesn’t mind it, he can afford a night in a Premier Inn on his salary. But he’ll have to have his neighbors check on Tony and Pep, and maybe feed them in the morning, too, and Liam wishes a bit futilely that he hadn’t spent all week avoiding thinking about this concert. He might’ve planned a bit better if he had.

“D’you think, er— Lepi— Legipodia will be on next?” he asks the person next to him— it’s the girl he’d given the ticket to, actually.

“They’re the headliners,” she tells Liam, looking at him like he’s daft. Which is fair— Liam feels a bit daft. He keeps forgetting how famous Styles actually is, then getting the reminders like great buckets of ice water to the face.

The concert goes on, and more artists come out that aren’t Harry’s band, and by the time the stage lights start flashing what’s apparently the signal, smoke machines blowing out clouds, and the crowd’s screaming wildly enough to make Liam’s eardrums buzz, Liam’s stomach has wound itself into a knot, his pulse hitting heavy and hot, pinpoints of sweat flushing out all over his skin. The lights flash out into the crowd then swing back to the stage, throwing a rainbow of colors across it. Harry’s band walks on, picking up their instruments amidst the screams, the loudest of them for Harry himself.

They launch into a song straight off, no introduction, and Liam is deliriously glad for it. Music is something that’s easy for him to breathe with, get caught in, and after a minute he’s grinning and jumping on his toes to the beat, and when Harry inevitably catches Liam’s eye for the first time, Liam doesn’t startle like a rabbit at it; his heartbeat’s already running away from him.

Liam grins at Harry, then points to Harry’s t-shirt. It’s just that it’s a bit much, with the printed white words bold against the black cotton, grimly spelling out: _you will never outrun your own death_. Liam pulls a face at it, turning his thumbs down so Harry can see.

Harry doesn’t laugh into the mic as he’s singing, but it seems like it’s a close thing. He flounces away to the left of the stage, reaching down and gesturing to someone in the crowd, never missing a beat— the song sounds familiar, Liam must have heard over a shop radio before, or in a mall— and a fan in the audience passes Harry the sign she’d been holding. Harry turns and displays it for the crowd— or for Liam, maybe— and the sign reads: _Happy Halloween HARRY!!!_ ; then Harry points to the fuzzy cat-eared headband that he’s got tucked into his hair, as if just to make sure Liam gets it.

Liam looks at the rest of the band, remembering them a beat late, and they all seem to be in some form of costume. The keyboardist is astonishingly good-looking, black hair slicked up, ripped top showing his tats— vampire, Liam guesses, especially if the thick eyeliner is any kind of tell. Maybe he always looks like a smoldering fallen angel, though. The guitarist and the drummer both seemed to be dressed like extras from _Saturday Night Fever_ : bellbottoms, faux-fur vests, eye-searing neon colors. The guitarist’s even got on a thick fake mustache, like a fuzzy black caterpillar perched over his mouth. Just like Harry’s costume, Liam doesn’t get it.

But it doesn’t stop him from enjoying their show, quite a lot. They perform what seems like a few of their bigger hits, with practically the whole audience singing the lyrics back at Harry, a dull roar that washes over Liam from behind, making his body throb with it. He doesn’t know what he was expecting from their music, just based on knowing Harry— indie electronica maybe, experimental use of banjos and kazoos, tambourine on the refrains— but they seem to prefer a simpler sound, really, just good honest music, lovely lyrics, all of it wrapped up in the husky honeyed timber of Harry’s voice.

The band takes a water break, but they don’t really leave the stage, just stay up there bantering with the audience, using the phones that fans throw onstage to take selfies with, gearing up to introducing the band around. Liam thinks he’s finally going to learn the names of the other lads, except he doesn’t get the chance to. A beefy bloke in a black Security t-shirt comes round from the pit and points Liam out in the front row, saying, “You’re Liam Payne?” 

When Liam nods, terrified that something dreadful’s happened, the guy indicates that Liam should come over the barrier and follow him. Liam does, all the while imaging fires, car accidents, hospital emergency rooms. 

It’s nothing so bad, of course. He follows the guy behind a door, and then down some stairs, and then up some stairs, and then they’re going through another door and suddenly the noise of the concert is back in Liam’s ears, clear as a bell again. Liam realizes he’s been led to the wing of the stage, meant to watch from the side along with the stage manager, and sound technicians, and a handful of other staff, and he can only stand there frozen like a deer in headlamps for a long minute.

Harry’s band is setting up for their last song. Harry’s set his mic into the stand again, planted himself in the center of the stage, and from this angle Liam’s got a half-view of the whole venue suddenly lighting up in front of Harry— mobile screens and glowsticks and cigarette lighters held up high, glittering through the darkness like stars.

The vampire keyboardist starts plunking out a familiar melody, and the crowd bursts into thrilled screams, hardly dying down even when Harry starts singing, so that the first line— _“It’s been seven hours and fifteen days—”_ nearly gets drowned out.

Harry is— he’s good. He’s well good, and Liam can easily picture him in bigger venues than this, in arenas, singing to ten thousand, but also pouring words directly into Liam’s ears like he’s alone in the room with Harry, his voice like a boat on a rushing dark river that carries Liam away with it. Especially during this song, this particular cover, with Liam standing so close— he can see exactly how Harry sings with his eyes screwed shut, pouring himself into his voice with his whole body curling around the mic stand, singing _“nothing compares”_ like he believes it, like he wants to light himself on fire and burn to death in the arms of each and every person in the audience.

Liam feels like he’s outside his body watching this happen like he’s someone else, everything too much like a dream, too surreal. The feeling lasts even through the concert finale, when the girls from Little Mix rush back onto the stage to join Harry’s band, and the eight of them sing ‘Monster Mash’ and the audience sings along delightedly, everyone dancing. Then the confetti cannons are going off on and everyone onstage is waving goodbye, and Harry’s telling the crowd thanks for coming, drive safe, they’ll see them soon, and then it’s finally over. Liam takes in deep breaths, feeling accomplished, like he’s just run a two-hour long race; he feels proud, too, near to bursting with it, but that feeling’s for Harry. Liam can’t quite explain that one to himself.

Harry’s the first of the band to leave off waving at the fans and head into the wings. He comes over to Liam straight away, catching him in a hug. Harry’s still thrumming with the energy from the stage, overheated with it, his skin and clothes damp with sweat. “You made it,” he says into Liam’s ear before letting him go.

“ _You_ made it,” Liam says back nonsensically, but Harry laughs anyway. Liam reckons it’s the adrenaline.

“C’mon, I’m famished. Are you hungry?” Harry says, and he tugs Liam along with him, leading him back along the busy corridors to his band’s green room. It’s a room like any other— Liam’s a bit disappointed to find it’s not actually green— and it’s messy, having seen a lot of people in it: clothes strewn over the chairs and couches, bags and food wrappers and empty water bottles littering the floor.

“Is Lucy not here tonight?” Liam says, curious enough to ask after her.

“She’s at her grandma’s,” Harry explains, going around the room and gathering things into a heap on one of the chairs. Liam’s confused, until he realizes Harry’s trying to tidy up for Liam’s benefit. “They’re trick or treating as Top Cat characters last I heard. But Luce’s been to loads of our shows before. Reckon she mostly gets bored at this point.”

Harry gives up on his half-hearted tidying to usher Liam onto the couch, having him sit, whipping out his mobile to show him a few pics Gemma’s sent of the girls with drawn-on whiskers and cat ears, Anne with a purple boaters hat she’s tipping low over her face, all of them mugging for the camera.

Liam grins at the pictures then up at Harry after, reaching to pluck at his sweaty top with it’s depressing message. “They did all right. You, though— mate, you’re really gonna call this a proper Halloween costume?” Liam teases.

“Hey,” Harry says, frowning slowly, and the door swings open behind him, letting in the rest of his bandmates. Harry ignores them, focusing on answering Liam’s question. “I’m being a dirty hipster, see,” he says, perching on the arm of the couch that’s nearest to Liam, stretching out his long legs in their ripped skinny jeans, kicking up his feet to show off his boots with worn-in holes. “It’s scary, right? And like, ironic.”

The drummer speaks up, sweeping the tangled flop of his long black wig over his shoulder, scoffing. “He’s lying,” he says, directing it for Liam’s benefit, “Harry’s just being himself, innit. The scary part is he actually does think he’s funny, can you believe it?”

Liam hides a grin in his hand, but he doesn’t have to come to Harry’s defense because the guitarist— the one with the mustache— steps up to do it. “His other idea was Björk in a swan dress, so let’s give praise he went with hipster, yeah?” His voice comes out thick with an Irish accent, but Liam’s peering at the two of them stood closely together, closer than they’d got during the show. Something’s just clicked for Liam.

“Sonny and Cher!” he says, pointing at them.

“Got a live one here, have we?” says the drummer— Cher— and the grin he flashes Liam is sharp, but not in a cutting way.

“See, Louis, told you people would get it,” the guitarist’s crowing, smug. 

“One person, Neil— one!” Cher—Louis— shouts back, and they start bickering loudly— or perhaps it’s just normal conversing for them, Liam can’t tell, but they seem to be grinning a lot. 

Harry leans closer to Liam, balancing with an arm behind Liam’s shoulders to get his mouth nearer to Liam’s ear, asking in a lowered, conversational tone: “And where’s your costume, Liam?”

“Er, you’re looking at it,” Liam says. He’d hardly paid attention by the time he’d switched his outfit for the last time, only worried at that point about not being late, but what he’s got on might as well have come out of his old dorm room closet: tight jeans and a tighter top, flannel shirt hanging off his hips; grunge done a decade too late, basically. Liam tries to play it off, joking, “Getting out of waistcoats and oxfords is outside the norm for me, to be fair. I’m not covered in dried paint. Mate, I’m surprised you recognized me.”

Harry looks him up and down, heat following his eyes along Liam’s body. “Reckon you’re hard to miss.”

Liam resists the urge to slither off the couch and run out the door. “What’s—” he clears his throat, gesturing. “What’s with the ears— they part of your dirty hipster look? Alley cat chic, is it?”

Harry’s hand goes up to his head and finds the cat ear headband still there. “Ha, forgot I had these on,” he says, and he slips them off, shaking his hair out after to fix it, such as it can be fixed. “Luce wanted to help,” Harry says, by way of explanation, and he’s looking more intently at Liam. By the time Liam’s registered the wicked twinkle in Harry’s eye, it’s too late. The ears get planted on Liam’s head.

“There,” Harry says, pleased with himself. “Reckon you’re ready for a bit of trick or treating.”

Liam can feel his eyebrows squinching together. Before he can come up with an answer for that, the couch bounces under the weight of the drummer throwing himself down next to Liam.

The fox-like smile is back in place. He’s got a voice like a smoking grandmother— very Cher-appropriate, actually. He’s saying, “Well don’t hog him to yourself, Harold, share him round properly. This is your famous Mr. P, isn’t it?”

Liam would be nervous, except the man’s dressed in drag and it’s a bit difficult to take him seriously. “Famous?” he echoes, bemused, glancing back and up at Harry.

“No need to be so modest,” the drummer says. “I’m Louis, but I’m sure Harry’s told you all about me. Say, your face has gone quite funny, hasn’t it? Bit like you’re meeting the in-laws, Mr. P?”

“Liam’s already met my mum, and Gems; they love him,” Harry says, stumping Louis momentarily. Harry hands off a plate of pizza that the vampire keyboardist’s just given him down to Liam.

The keyboardist notices, and hefts the extra can of Coke he’s carrying at Liam, a winged eyebrow going up in inquiry. Liam tries to protest to both of them: “Oh, that’s not— this is for the bands. I’m not hungry, really—”

“Bro,” says the one named Neil, his mouth already half-crammed with a slice of sausage and pepperoni. He jerks his chin at a side table where something like thirty pizza boxes are stacked in towers. Liam shuts up. He lifts a piece and bites into it, because he actually is starving. He accepts the Coke, too, nodding his thanks. Harry seems pleased.

“So you’ve met Louis,” Harry says while everyone’s busy eating, still perched on the arm of the couch next to Liam even though the room’s full of other seats. “And that’s Niall,” he says, pointing to Neil, and finishes with a wave towards the keyboardist. “And the pretty one is Zayn.”

“Can I just ask—” Liam says, directing his question to Zayn. “Are you a vampire?”

Everyone laughs. Zayn just smirks. “I get that a lot,” he says, shrugging, which doesn’t exactly answer Liam’s question, but okay. He keeps eating.

The pizza is honestly too cold, too greasy, and Liam’s probably had way better meals in his life, but he can’t really remember when. He’s sat eating this one in a backstage room at a concert hall, hanging out with rockstars, and they’re treating him like one of the lads, joking and laughing with him, and even the manky fluorescent light seems tinted gold when it’s over their faces. Everything’s brilliant.

*

Thanks to them, Liam learns a great deal more about Harry that he adds to his mental Wikipedia entry: Harry was the one who started the band, came up with the name for the band, the band basically only happened because Harry was living stray cat-like on all of their couches at some point, circa six or seven years ago, and he wouldn’t leave until each of them agreed to give the music thing a go. The rest is history, as they say.

Harry doesn’t protest the way they tease him— basking in it like a cat in a sunbeam, actually— leaning nearly as much against Liam’s shoulder as he is the back of the couch, a warm and looming weight that Liam keeps wandering in and out of awareness of. Like in one minute, Niall’s telling about the time they went golfing in Scotland, drunk as skunks, trying to swing from inside their moving cart like it’s a bloody polo match and ending up half-drowned in a water trap because of it, and Liam’s got a hand squeezing over Harry’s knee, laughing so hard his stomach aches— and then in the next minute, Harry’s fingers are grazing over the shorter hair at the back of Liam’s neck— probably by accident— and it’s like Harry’s touch makes Liam aware of his own and he jolts with it, drawing his hand back into his lap like he’s burned, slinking down guiltily in his seat.

It feels like barely a handful of seconds have passed before Zayn’s looking up from his mobile to say into the general roar of the room: “Yo, Perrie says she and the girls are already at the party, and like, everyone’s asking for us?”

Liam gets distracted from laughing over Niall’s ridiculously good impersonation of Sonny Bono. “Oh, I’m so sorry, was I keeping you from something?” he asks, worried.

Louis only scratches under his wig, unconcerned. “Fuck off, bro, s’just a hotel afterparty. Hardly the stuff of legend, innit? You want to come?”

For a long moment Liam’s tempted to say yes, lulled by the fun he’s had and how much he’d like the night to go on like this, and Harry to keep smiling at Liam like that— fond and a bit possessive, the strangeness of it making Liam’s stomach squirm. But he can feel reality just over his shoulder now, hovering like a disapproving nanny ready to usher him away from their influence. “I should get headed back,” he says, and winces when he checks his wristwatch for the first time in a long while. “Bloody— it’s tomorrow already?”

He hadn’t meant to say it so loud, but— “You alright to get back, bro?” Niall asks.

“Ah, the train is— but I can take a taxi, it’s fine.”

“From Liverpool?” Louis says, making a face. “Are you mental?”

Harry’s already stood up, moving over to a side table as he shrugs on his coat, picking up what look like his wallet and keys. “I’ll drive Liam home,” he says, speaking as if it’s a foregone conclusion.

Liam nearly leaps out of his own seat. “No, I couldn’t let you — I’m fine, it’s really fine. I could try to find a hotel, even.”

“Shut up, Liam,” Harry says, but fond and mild, as if Liam’s a yappy dog he’s chiding. “I’m taking you.”

“But the party—” Liam tries, “You’ll be missed, won’t you?”

Niall snorts from where he’s packing up what remains of the pizza, probably to take along to the hotel. “Are you kidding? Harry never comes to these things. Dusty old father, ain’t he? All that.”

“Lucy’s just a good excuse.” Harry leans near to confide this and ushers Liam towards the door, not giving him anymore chances to protest. 

Liam calls a hasty goodbye to the rest of the band from over his shoulder, saying how happy he was to meet them, trying to not think too long about how much he likes the solid steadiness of Harry’s hand braced at his elbow, or the low tugging in Liam’s stomach that feels like a wave pulling him out with the tide.

The other two shout goodbye back, but it’s Zayn who follows Liam and Harry into hallway. “Christ, Harry, the paps,” Zayn says, his slurred voice gone sharper with exasperation, and it’s Liam that Zayn’s reaching for, plucking the cat ears off his head. Apparently it was Liam’s turn to have forgot he was wearing them. ‘‘You want him to get eaten alive?”

Liam doesn’t get it— not until he and Harry are stood at the back exit of the venue and three security blokes appear from nowhere, and then they’re pushing the door open, and Harry’s walking out and down the steps and there’re all these fans, a crowd of them still waiting even though it’s so late. As Liam watches, hanging back and trying to will himself into invisibility, Harry spends several minutes with the fans: giving out hugs, signing autographs, taking pictures, asking about their costumes if they’ve got something fun on. There’s not just fans, though— not unless lots of middle-aged men with expensive cameras are in the band’s demographic. Liam guesses those must be the paparazzi Zayn was warning about.

A driver finally pulls up in Harry’s Range Rover, passing along the keys like a valet. Harry says his goodbyes, takes a last few pictures where clinging hands won’t let him stray, and then the security guys are weaving in and Harry’s free of the press of bodies. He reaches back for Liam and finds him unerringly, like Harry’d known where Liam was the whole time. The volume of the chattering of the fans who see this goes up by a few decibels, louder even than Liam’s students at their most unruly, and then everything’s happening quickly: some girls are shouting to ask who Liam is, the cameras get aimed at Liam’s face, flashes going off in his eyes like punches swung from the dark, then Harry’s got Liam inside the car and they’re driving off with just the two of them, and there’s so much quiet for the first time all night that it rings in Liam’s ears like an echo.

They’ve been on the motorway east for a few minutes before Liam works up to breaking the quiet. “Is it always like that?” he ventures.

Harry chews his lip, shifting lanes before he answers. “That was a bit low-key, all things told.”

“Even when Lucy— sorry,” Liam stops himself, remembering how very much it’s not his place.

“I try to keep her away from the cameras as much as I can,” Harry says.

Liam’s mouth runs away from him, saying, “But you’re always in the tabloids, aren’t you?” He regrets it instantly, wanting to reach into the air and shove the words back behind his teeth. “God, I’m sorry,” he says, holding up his hands. “I didn’t mean to sound like a gossiping hen. I don’t read those things, I swear. They’re awful.”

“It’s alright, I don’t mind it,” Harry says, voice slow and careful, a sluggish trickle of sound through the dark, hardly even louder than the rumble of the car engine. Harry shrugs. “I mean, I do, a bit. But I don’t like to complain. Reckon it’s better it’s me than my family.”

Liam sits back in his seat, fiddling with the strap of his seatbelt and stealing sideways looks at Harry as he drives. It’s a struggle, is the thing— trying to reconcile all the different versions of Harry that Liam’s seen glimpses of so far: the normal guy with his mates, the father with his daughter, the rockstar with his fans. Liam doesn’t quite understand how one person can fit so much into just one body, how he can be all these things at once and not feel like he’s going to burst out of his skin sometimes. But maybe Harry does feel that. 

Liam wants to ask, but he bites his tongue against the words, thinking at least he can respect Harry’s privacy if a million others can’t. “I’m sorry,” Liam says again, softer; it’s not for himself.

Harry turns from the road to glance at Liam, his eyes colored black in the dark of the car and his teeth flashing brief white as he smiles, changing the subject as he looks away. “You never said how you liked the concert,” Harry says. “Did you have fun?”

“Well, it was no ABBA reunion tour—” Liam says, then laughs. “Only joking. No, yeah, it was brilliant, loved it.”

“Was tonight the first time you’d heard any of our music?”

“Absolutely not!” Liam protests, but it’s weak. Hearing stuff on a shop radio should totally count. He tries anyway: “I love Lago… morphia. I’m a massive fan.”

The look Harry shoots him is probably exactly as skeptical as Liam deserves. “Let me see your phone,” Harry demands.

“What? No. Why?”

Harry doesn’t explain, just reaches his left arm over to snatch for Liam’s phone, borrowing too much time from driving to struggle with him, long fingers tangling playfully in Liam’s pockets and then with his hands. Liam squawks the whole time, but finally yields with a huff, releasing his grip in favor of Harry not driving his car into a ditch.

Harry skims to Liam’s music player, and then through his playlists, one hand on the steering wheel and his eyes flicking up to the car ahead of them every couple seconds. Liam knows what he’s finding: lots of Drake, lots of Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, Wiz Khalifa, Roots Manuva, Method Man, Busta Rhymes. Liam has a playlist called _running stuff_ that’s basically just ‘Promiscuous’ ten times over. He’s not blushing— it’s the perfect beat for interval training, see.

“So that’s how it is,” Harry says, and he hands Liam’s phone back, sending him a sidelong grin. Liam feels strange— tricked, almost, by the dark, and the closeness of the car interior, and the intimacy of driving somewhere far at the end of a long night. It feels like Harry’s grin means something more than it should. 

“School teacher by day, gangster by night, hey, Liam?” Harry says, teasing.

Liam laughs. “It’s my secret identity, you’ve caught me.” He scrolls through his playlists on his own, wanting to prove he really does appreciate all genres of music. “Did you see the Lady Gaga on here, though? And the Michael Bublé? He’s brilliant, that one.” He faces his screen towards Harry, not sure if he catches it, then goes back to looking, finding his years-old Sinatra and Martin playlist hidden under the title of _gentlemen classiccc_.

“Ooh, love this song—” Liam gets sidetracked, and he sings a few bars of ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ before he stops, noticing the way Harry keeps dragging his eyes between Liam and the road like he’s having to tear himself away. “Sorry if I’m being distracting.”

“You’re well distracting, mate,” Harry agrees. There’s a smaller smile than the one before playing around his mouth, but it hits Liam’s chest like it’s bigger for some reason— especially when Harry says, “But you’re the real thing, aren’t you,” in a tone like he’s decided something, like it’s a serious thing to say, like Harry doesn’t say that to people very often.

Liam’s not sure what Harry means by it, but it seems intended as a compliment, so Liam says, “Thanks,” and then after chewing his lip over it, “You are, too. Just so you know.”

Harry goes quiet. Liam holds his breath, and for a long minute the only sounds are the steady whoosh of passing cars and squeak of the windscreen wipers clearing off a midnight rain that’s more mist than anything else. Liam stares at the droplets as they form up and streak away on the glass, thinking it’ll probably turn heavier by the time the sun’s up. It’s a gloomy thought; Liam hates running in the rain.

He finally can’t take it. “Look, if I’ve said— did I put my foot in it? I keep saying all the wrong things.”

“No, you’re not, you haven’t.” Harry’s grip goes momentarily tighter over the steering wheel, and his voice comes out lower when he says, “It’s weird, I dunno. People usually tell me like, just the opposite, that’s all.”

“Well,” Liam says, after hesitating over how to answer a confession like that. “I guess you’ve made a fan of me.” He wants to lighten the moment, shake off the sudden weight that’s descended, so he adds: “Hey, I’ll even download your band’s records, yeah? Er, do you have a lot of them? Or like, okay, at least the most recent one, I’ll get that one.”

Harry grins. “Nah, bro, I’ll hook you up. I’ll bung some cd’s into your lunch for Monday, got loads of ‘em lying around.”

“Harry!” Liam says, protesting. “I can’t let you do that. It’s already too much with just the lunches.”

“You don’t like them?”

“‘Course I like them, it’s just. It’s just— too much,” Liam finishes lamely, at a loss to explain without sounding like more of an idiot.

“It’s just as easy making for two as it is for one,” Harry says, shrugging in his typical way. “I like doing it.”

Liam’s twisted in his seat as much as he can, trying to face Harry, hoping he looks earnest and convincing and not like a walrus with the way his forehead’s gone all wrinkled. “But it isn’t fair, is it?” he asks. “Since I haven’t got you anything in return.”

“Least I can do for my kid’s favorite teacher,” Harry says.

Liam bites his lip on a smile, settling back into his seat. “I’m her only teacher,” he says, remembering his conversation with Lucy. But his voice has changed, and Harry’s grin’s even wider, dimple carved deep into his cheek like he knows Liam’s given in. Liam seems to do that a lot around Harry; it’s probably something he should be worried about.

“How about a trade, then,” Harry offers. “I’ll keep making you lunch, and you can download our new album when it comes out.”

“Oh, I can do that, can I?” Liam laughs. “Just want to boost your sales, innit— I’m onto your tricks, Styles.”

“Are you?” Harry’s got his eyes mainly on the road now, but they flick once to Liam, and he says, “I was hoping you were.”

*

By the time Harry rolls to a stop in front of Liam’s house, the rain’s already drumming steadily on the roof of the car like the marching feet of toy soldiers. Liam looks at the dark windows of his home, and the yellow circle of the outside light Liam had left on for himself before he’d gone, and he turns back to Harry, asking him if he’d fancy a cup of tea.

Liam’s only thinking that it’s the polite thing to offer, that Harry’s just driven them an hour— he could’ve been at a party with his mates instead of driving in the rain with his daughter’s school teacher, and he’s been a good sport about everything. Liam doesn’t think about Harry seriously taking him up on it.

What actually happens is that Harry looks at Liam for a long moment after he’s asked, and Liam desperately wants to read Harry’s face, but he can’t, and Liam’s got his fingers dug into the door handle, ready to push it open and dive out in the rain to escape the weight of the quiet that’s between them and turning Liam’s offer of tea into something else entirely, when Harry at last says, “Yeah, love one.” He takes the keys out of the ignition. Liam’s heart stops at the same time.

It starts up again, very soon— right on his doorstep, in fact, right after Harry’s crowded up close behind Liam, both of them sharing the tiny overhang to keep dry, when Harry’s breath is warm on Liam’s neck and Harry’s hand is brushing the small of Liam’s back, and Liam nearly fumbles his keys to the ground, but he doesn’t, thank god.

The dogs start up a racket as soon as they hear him set foot inside. Liam has to hurry to the back door before they wake the whole bloody neighborhood, warning Harry as he goes: “Sorry, we don’t get visitors too often. They might be a bit, like. Enthusiastic.”

Tony and Pepper come barreling in from the garden, squirming ecstatically around Liam’s ankles. He’s been gone for several hours, which is basically forever by a dog’s reckoning. Then they spot the new person in the room, and it’s as much bedlam as Liam had feared.

“Little help, mate?” Harry asks, buried under about seventy pounds of smelly dog.

Liam wades in to heave them off, giving Harry a hand with brushing the mud from his jeans, telling him, “Sorry, sorry, I told you they’re monsters. I know the dry-cleaner in town— Mr. Dolinski, he’s proper magic. Give him my name, he’ll fix you right up,” and Liam’s chewing hard on the inside of his cheek to not burst out laughing, but Harry can probably hear it in his voice, anyway. Liam shoves Pepper’s nose away from it’s investigation of Harry’s crotch. “Get off, Pepper, would you? You big creeper.”

“I’ve had worse, trust me,” Harry says. There’s something amused in the way he says it that makes Liam realize he’s been the only one swatting at the dirt on Harry’s legs for an awkward amount of time. He straightens up fast.

“Er, take your coat?” Liam offers, nearly ripping it from Harry’s arms in his hurry to get to the coat rack, shedding his own at the same time. He feels several degrees warmer than he should, really, given that it’s the middle of a blustery fall night. He clicks on a table lamp, light flooding the small room, glancing around just to make sure he hasn’t left any stray ties or pants hanging over any of the furniture. It’s a strange feeling, having the light after being together for so long in the dark; Liam nearly wants to turn it off again.

He turns and sees Harry has crouched down in front of Tony and started playing with his big floppy ears, flapping them up and down like wings. Tony doesn't seem fussed by it— just looks happy to be alive as usual. Harry scratches his cheeks next, praising him in a low, friendly tone, calling him a ‘handsome boy,’ not seeming to mind the damp curling fur and lolling drooly tongue that make Tony look more worthy of a B sci-fi movie than showing at Crufts.

“That’s done it,” Liam tells Harry, shaking his head. “You’ve gone and coddled him— won’t ever be able to get rid of him now. He’ll follow you to the ends of the earth.”

Harry glances up, grinning, before looking back to Tony. Harry fondles his ears some more, crooning, “You love me already, huh, buddy? If only people were so easy.”

And watching Harry like this— in the middle of Liam’s cramped living room, on the faded Shiraz rug his grandma had got as a wedding gift, Harry still wearing his hipster concert clothes and his hands on Liam’s dog— Liam thinks with a growing sense of despair that people are even easier, maybe. Especially if Liam’s any sort of example.

“I’ll just go see about that tea,” Liam croaks, escaping to the kitchen.

His hands aren’t as steady as he might like when getting the kettle on the boil. But Pepper follows him in, hoping for a midnight snack, and Liam lets one hand fall into place on the top of her head, the other pulling mugs out of the cupboard. His body settles with her familiar weight pressing against his legs like an anchor, grounding him.

There’s a view of the living room between the top cupboards and the counter, but Liam doesn’t have to see Harry puttering around, he can hear it, tracking the sound of Harry’s boots against the carpet as he paces along the walls. There’re loads of pictures up, Liam knows, but only a few of them belong to him. The rest are held over from his grandparents: black and white snapshots of relatives Liam’s only met once or twice at reunions, solemn-eyed portraits of Liam’s mum as a baby. Liam tries to remember what he’d had on the walls of his dorm in uni, what that might’ve said about the pre-adult version of him— he remembers a lot of Avengers posters, mostly, and a signed vinyl of _Aquemini_ that Dan had got Liam for his birthday one year. Liam still has that, actually— just hung up in the toilet. Too odd to hang across from Great Aunt Mildred.

He’s thought about putting more of his own pictures up— his mum makes a point of tutting about it every time she visits— but it’s just, Liam doesn’t have much to fill the space with. He’s got Tony and Pepper, and his sisters, and his parents. Twenty-five years old, and that’s what he has.

Liam turns, his back resting on the edge of the laminate countertop, listening as Harry’s footsteps carry him to the open entrance of the kitchen. Liam’s eyes lift from the floor, moving with slow reluctance from Harry’s boots to the long lines of his legs, taking in the way Harry’s got his hands tucked into the tight pockets of his jeans, his shoulders rounded under his ears, the collar of his ridiculous t-shirt loose and slipping enough for Liam to see the tattooed wings of birds. Neither of them speak, and Liam's heart starts to hammer his chest, an aching throb that feels like it’s running ahead of Liam to exactly where he shouldn’t go. 

As if Harry can hear it from that distance, as if he already knows, Harry walks further into the kitchen, soles of his boots tapping overloud against the lino. He stops when he's a foot away, warm and solid and looming, finally taking his hands out of his pockets to set them flat on the counter on either side of Liam's hips. Liam sucks in a breath at that, and when his gaze flicks helplessly to Harry's lips, he thinks Harry must catch it— he must, how could he not; they’re stood close enough now for the smell of Harry’s cologne to sit in the back of Liam’s mouth, cedar and citrus so thick that he can hardly swallow around it. 

It has to be easy from this close to read the want that must be telegraphed all over Liam— his fingers gripping white over the counter’s edge absolutely have to be giving him away, his pulse jumping in his throat like fucking morse code— Harry can’t not see it. Especially when Liam tilts his chin up, just a small fraction, hardly knowing what he’s doing, trying to gather the words to ask Harry how he likes his tea, but they won’t come, lodged completely in his desert-dry throat. And when Liam looks up, he catches the way Harry’s looking back at him; Liam sees it. After that it seems almost inevitable for Harry’s mouth to fall on top of Liam’s, and it does— Liam watches it happen and doesn’t move, because he’s seen how Harry wants this too, because finally, finally they’re kissing.

And for an ages long minute, it doesn’t register with Liam how impossible this is. All that registers is the welcome wet heat of it, and the slickness of Harry’s tongue against Liam’s, and the low groan he makes when Liam’s hands fly up on instinct, sinking into Harry’s curls and pulling him harder against Liam’s mouth. Harry moves his own hands from the counter, gripping tight to the bare curve of Liam’s neck and shoulder, the metal of his rings warming fast against Liam’s skin. Liam makes a helpless heated sound over Harry’s teeth sinking into his lower lip, tugging in a way that sends sparks curling low in his belly, gasping against Harry’s mouth again when one of Harry’s hand drops down to the hem of Liam’s top, tugging on it briefly before slipping underneath to get at the warm skin of his back, holding tight and pulling him forward into Harry— as if they could get any closer, as if their legs weren’t already tangled together, Harry’s thigh in his tight jeans wedged between Liam’s like it belongs there— as if the feeling of Harry’s chest pressing into Liam’s with their quick short breaths and the hard bulge of him filling out against Liam’s hip wasn’t already driving Liam slowly mad. 

Every press of Harry’s lips and hands feels like a shock and like it’s been a million years coming, and every inch of Liam is starting to tremble, anticipating how Harry’s going to try and touch and kiss him next. He might even be five seconds from all but leaping at Harry, his hands already dropping and curling into the cotton of Harry’s top between his shoulders in anticipation of yanking it up to get at more of him— right now Liam only has Harry’s mouth and his hands and the line of his body to curve into and it isn’t enough, not even nearly. 

So when Liam registers Pepper’s heavy paw suddenly trodding on his foot, a familiar weight that’s utterly out of place with everything else going on, Liam startles out of the kiss with a gasp like a swimmer breaking the surface after too long underwater.

“Liam—” Harry says, sounding out of breath, his eyes still on Liam’s mouth, and Liam can’t do this.

“It’s late,” Liam says, shaky and breathing like he’s just been running, slipping along the counter until he’s out of the circle of Harry’s arms. His lips feel stung and his mouth still tastes like Harry and it’s ridiculous, utterly ridiculous to act like they weren’t just— that Liam hadn’t been about to— but Liam tries anyway. “It’s so late, isn’t it? And you had a show, and— you must be shattered.”

The kettle starts to whistle but Liam keeps his eyes fixed on Harry, pretending he doesn’t hear it, it doesn’t exist. Harry takes a step back, then another, breathing out and rubbing his neck at the same time. “Right, yeah— reckon I’m a bit tired. Should get home to bed,” he says, more like he’s humoring Liam than agreeing with him, and Liam is so, so ridiculously grateful. 

Liam gets Harry his coat, walking him out with the dogs trailing at their heels, and Harry pats them both goodbye before turning back to Liam in the doorway. The rain’s let up while they’ve been tucked indoors, already stopped— Liam hadn’t been expecting that. Same with most everything else that’s happened.

“Thanks again for coming tonight,” Harry tells him. Liam braces for it when Harry leans in once more, but his lips only land at the corner of Liam’s own, more of a tease than a farewell, and Liam has to curl his fingers into the doorframe to not reach for Harry, not drag him back in, not kiss him again and beg, “Stay, stay,” into his open mouth.

They say goodnight. Liam shuts the door, putting his back against for good measure. When he finally hears the rumble of Harry’s car starting up, the tires crunching away through the gravel of the driveway, the tension breaks in Liam like a snapped wire. He covers his face, groaning loud into his hands, slumping down to the ground right where he’d been stood.

“Fuck, what’ve I done?” Liam says, thumping his head against the door as punishment, chanting, “Bugger, idiot, wanker—” trying to knock some reason into himself, trying to knock out the lingering phantom feeling of Harry’s hands all over him, the way Liam can still taste the mint from Harry’s gum. Tony and Pepper crowd around Liam, hovering, trying to get between his bent legs to lick excitedly at his face. 

“And why didn’t you two stop me?” Liam accuses them, but he knows they’re not the ones to blame. No— the fault for tonight lies solely, one-hundred percent with Liam. 

*

It’s not very original as far as strategies go, but Liam spends the next week avoiding Harry as much as possible.

Dodging Harry Styles is one thing— especially when Liam begs Mrs. Keynes who teaches first years down the hall to trade Liam a few weeks of pick-up duty for all the rest of her lunch duties for the semester— but Lucy Styles is another thing entirely.

“Hey, Mr. P,” she says, dashing up to him during lunch time on Wednesday, and Liam reacts quickly, catching her elbow right before she can trip on a tiny crack in the tarmac and faceplant.

“Whoa there, Usain Bolt,” Liam tells her, grinning. She's got a ketchup stain from lunch on her blouse and he has to resist the urge to pull out his handkerchief and fuss at it.

“Who’s Usain Bolt?”

“A real-life superhero, button. What’s up?”

She blinks up at him, dark fringe flopping over her forehead. She’d started out the morning wearing a green scarf for a headband, but she’s mysteriously lost it between then and now, an occurrence that happens frequently. Liam’s got a whole collection of Lucy’s barrettes in his drawer that he’s found while cleaning up, saving them to dole out whenever she sheds yet another.

“Mr. P, does your phone work?” she asks him, head tilting like a bird’s.

“I reckon it does,” he tells her, puzzled but amused. “Why— need to make a call to the Prime Minister? Is it very urgent?”

“No,” she says, giggling. “Daddy said I should find out for him.”

Liam never thought he’d ever find himself fighting the urge to run and hide from a four and a half year-old. Guilt stabs him like his mum’s knitting needles. It’s not that Liam’s ignoring all of Harry’s texts, exactly— it’s just that Liam hasn’t had any idea what to tell him. Harry’s last text was to accuse Liam of freaking out, which is just unfair. Liam’s not freaking out; he just doesn’t understand anything about this thing between them, at all— not how it got started, and especially why Harry’s not shrugged it off and moved on yet the way Liam had spent all of the Sunday after the kiss imagining Harry would— first while Liam’d been pacing his house, and then while weeding the garden, and then while running so far and for so long that even Tony had finally stopped racing ahead of him— and when Liam had come back home in the early hours of twilight, his shirt soaked through and his calves burning and his lungs a solid ache in his chest, the text from Harry that’d said _Last night was really great .x_ had been a lot easier to interpret as a one-off thing.

“Well, that’s— my phone is—” Liam’s mouth works uselessly, halting over how to respond, and finally he blurts: “I’m very busy.”

“Okay,” she says, hopping from one foot to another, the conversation clearly having exceeded her attention span for caring. “I’m gonna go play Stuck in the Mud now.”

“Alright, just be careful,” he calls after her, immediately anxious— she’d nearly blacked her eye playing tag just last week. 

After school lets out for the day— Liam’s not hiding away in his classroom, that’s silly, it’s just he needs to get this model solar system up on the ceiling before the weekend, it’s a big project, they’re doing a whole science unit on astronomy next week— Liam caves, just a bit, and he pulls his mobile from his pocket, sat at the top of the ladder with Mercury bumping against the side of his head to send _sorryyyyyyy just super busy_ to Harry.

Liam’s phone buzzes with a new text when he’s in the middle of trying to balance the tape measure and pin up Jupiter at the same time— it’s important to get the distances to scale— but Liam doesn’t let himself look till he’s got Pluto tucked into the far back corner. Liam knows it’s not technically a planet anymore, but he feels sorry for it.

Harry’s sent: _I'll only let you run away for so long, Liam._

Liam sits down in the middle of his checkered alphabet carpet to read it again, and then a third time, and Liam’s not freaking out, not a jot, but he’s suddenly typing back, _your the one i can't catch up to_ and his thumb hovers over the send key for a long, frustrated moment, but Liam doesn’t tap it. 

He moves an inch to the side and hits delete instead, holding it down until he’s got nothing left but the cursor inside a blank message box. Then he gets up, tucking his phone away, concentrating on tidying up all the stray bits of yarn from the floor.

*

Friday morning has Andy texting Liam with his usual nag to come down to London for the weekend and hang out— translation: ‘barcrawl like we did in uni’— and for half the day Liam considers it. It’s maybe just what he needs to stop feeling put together so wrong, so antsy: maybe Liam just needs to get out of his head, get out of his skin— get under somebody else, honestly. But eight o’clock sees him at home on his couch just like most every other Friday night, in his oldest joggers and a holey crewneck, Tony and Pepper crowding him on either side, all three of them gazing listlessly at _BGT_ on the telly.

His mobile rings during a commercial break, and Liam sighs and answers it, knowing the slagging off will only get worse the longer he puts it off for.

 _“Liiiiaammmmmmm,”_ comes Andy’s voice over the phone, already sounding like a reprimand. There’s a bit of background noise, but not a deafening amount— he must be on his way to the pub, but not actually there yet.

“Hey,” Liam says, hitting the mute on the telly, resigning himself at the same time.

_“You’re a relic, mate, you know that? You’re a proper museum piece. You’re mummified. Come the fuck to London, bro.”_

“I’ve got— like, lesson plans to write,” Liam tries, “loads of ‘em. Can’t make it.”

 _“Oh, you’ve got lesson plans, is it? Sure you’ve got lesson plans, right,”_ Andy doesn’t sound reprimanding anymore—he sounds smug, nearly, or close to it. Liam gets worried. _“And where was your lesson plans last weekend, eh?”_

“What’re you on about?”

_“Nothing much, nothing at all— just my best mate shagging about in Liverpool and not telling me, innit?”_

“I was doing what now?” Liam asks, thoroughly confused by this point.

 _“And with Harry bloody Styles? That’s it, Payne, I’m revoking our friendship. Like, we’re done, bro, we’re through, yeah? I don’t even know you anymore.”_ Andy’s voice is full of laughter, so Liam doesn’t for a second take him seriously, but Harry’s name coming out of Andy’s mouth is an unexpected shock, one that has Liam’s heart jumping up into his throat and holding it tight with apprehension.

“Andy,” Liam says, speaking fast, “tell me what the fuck you’re on about or I’m gonna come to London just to whack you.”

_“Picked up The Sun lately, mate? Well I did this morning, and guess who’s ugly mug I gets greeted with on page five.”_

Liam’s knee-jerk reaction is to call him full of shit, but there’s a flash in Liam’s brain that stops him, searing bright like a camera flash, and suddenly he’s remembering the paparazzi that’d been mixed in with the fans after the concert last weekend.

“Bloody hell,” Liam says, hissing it. Then, “Listen, mate, I’ll call you back, yeah? Like, real quick, I just gotta— I’ll call you back.”

 _“Why, wait—”_ Andy starts, but Liam’s already ringing off, dumping Pepper off his lap to run to his bedroom, flinging aside the pile of laundry strewn over his desk till he unearths his laptop, cursing under his breath as he boots it up.

The Sun’s online website takes ages to load, and Liam only breathes easier when he doesn’t immediately see his face splashed across the homescreen of it, but his leg is still jiggling restlessly as he clicks about, looking for the article or the blog post or whatever the fuck it was that Andy saw.

He finally finds it in the celebrity gossip section, and it’s not as bad as he’d feared. It’s not much at all, really: one blurry picture of Liam and Harry from outside the concert venue at night, suggestive only because of Harry’s hand at Liam’s back as he ushers him into the car. Hardly proof of anything. Not that there’s anything to be proven.

At least, he thinks it’s not so bad, until he starts reading the text that’s been written along with it— nothing with Liam’s name anywhere, but apparently the picture had been uploaded by a ‘Harry Styles update twitter’— whatever the bleedin’ fuck that is— and then got picked up by Sugarscape’s twitter account, then The Heat’s, and just the fact that the one picture alone has hundreds of thousands of retweets has Liam boggling, until he realizes the retweets don’t mean the views— that’s a number actually in the millions more. He has to sit back in his chair with his hands over his mouth at that, process it for a minute.

Fingers moving gingerly over the trackpad, Liam makes himself click on a link back to the Sugarscape post about it. This one has more of the public response to the rumors then speculation; there’re mostly quotes from different fans in there:

_@sugadaddystyles: noooo harry’s dating again??? ☹ byyyyyyyye my life is over_

_@vibes_arrehxxx: as long as it’s not taylor idc tbh lol_

_@i_own_harrys_dick: I’M gonna MARRY HARRY EVERYONE ELSE CAN %# &* RIGHT OUT _

He doesn’t get half of what’s been said, which he counts as a blessing, but at the bottom of the post there’s one tweet in particular that’s been highlighted from someone that was allegedly at the gig, maybe even the girl Liam had given his extra ticket to.

_@takemelouis: this bloke was at the concert!!! right in front! harry sang to him like the whole time and came and got him after. they are definitely a couple!!!!!_

Liam slams the lid of his laptop shut, over this now and extremely over himself. He goes back to watching the rest of _BGT_ with his dogs, only making a pit stop at the fridge to pull out a beer before he does.

He doesn’t want to— he very much doesn’t want to— but towards the end of the programme, after the gymnastic troupe that he favors to win it have already gone, Liam cradles his half-empty beer between his thighs and pulls his mobile out from the crack in the cushions where he’d stashed it. Hating himself, a lot, he googles for Harry’s personal twitter.

Liam’s got his thumbnail caught between his teeth, chewing on it the whole time he’s scrolling through, but there’s not much to see: just loads of pictures of Harry’s mates, and a few of Lucy, and random objects like shoes— there’s one of the crowd from the concert that Liam really likes, from when it’d been all full of lights and glittering— and some text bits of different song lyrics.

Then Liam hits the tab that says ‘All’, thinking there might be a few more of those weirdly endearing instant-gram things squirreled away, and suddenly he’s opened up a whole other can of worms. It’s all of Harry’s tweets to other people, apparently, but there’s one towards the top, recent, that draws Liam’s eyes in like a magnet:

_@Harry_Styles: @daisyharry heyyyy now, settle down. do have someone i’m thinking about, though._

Liam tries to see the original message from the fan, but there’s nothing there— deleted, or hidden, he doesn’t know how this shit works— so that leaves Harry’s response just floating there, confusing and out of context, making Liam’s heart trip over itself, his stomach churn, his breaths come on the edge of too quick.

Liam sends a text to Andy. _i’m not shagging about in liverpool and i’m absolutly notttttttttt shagging harry styles i’m sat here with tony and pep in my pjs this is my life for fucks sake_. He just— he needs to get that out there in the world to someone, anyone; needs that confirmation.

 _lolll relax bryn_ , Andy texts back, auto and misspelling like he’s drunk; must’ve made it to the pub by now. _wuz just havin u in i know ur not shaggin the bike hes like wicked famos_

Liam’s glad, reading it. He’s glad someone else gets it. He’s glad to know even his best mate wouldn’t ever believe Liam and Harry as a thing— because it’s too crazy, right, and it’s impossible, and it just— it just could never happen.

Liam lifts his beer from his lap and drains the rest of it, his head still reeling from how overwhelmingly glad he feels.

*

Monday morning and Liam’s in his class the usual thirty minutes before school starts, setting up for the day, and he’s singing along to music so he almost doesn’t hear the knock at the door. But it comes again louder, and Liam goes over to the whiteboard where he’s got his phone propped up, turning the volume down as he shouts, “Come in, it’s open!”

Mr. Applegate, the year two teacher from across the hall, is the only one close enough to be bothered by the music, but he’s borrowed Liam’s hole punch so often it practically lives in his room so Liam figures they’re even. He turns as the door swings out, expecting to see Applegate’s balding head, but instead it’s Harry’s loose dark curls ducking inside followed close by Lucy at his heels.

“Oh, hey,” Liam greets them, trying to hide how startled he is. He fumbles with his mobile, getting the music all the way off. ‘Drop it Like It’s Hot’ isn’t exactly fit for the impressionable ears of children.

“Morning,” Harry says, Lucy echoing him and skipping over to throw herself at Liam for the usual start-of-the-day hug. “Sorry we’re so early,” Harry goes on, hefting a large pink pastry box. “Just wanted to drop this off for your class before things got too hectic.”

“It’s fairy cakes for Emmy’s birthday,” Lucy chimes in, tugging Liam’s hand till he’s following her over to where Harry’s setting the box down on a table. “Look, teacher, aren’t they so pretty?”

Liam’s had to rescue them both from over-enthusiastic swinging on the climbing frame enough times to know that Emilia Cuthbert is Lucy’s best mate and partner in crime, the Jane to her Tarzan. “Wow, these are a picture,” he enthuses, looking them over. They really are gorgeous— lavender icing with those posh glittery sprinkle things. He tugs on a lock of her hair. “Nice job, Mary Berry. Bake all these yourself, did you?”

Lucy wrinkles her nose at him. “Who’s Mary Berry?”

Liam says, “A very wise and wonderful woman, sweetheart,” and he doesn’t mean to but he glances up to meet Harry’s eyes for the first time, and it feels like a punch to the lungs to see Harry smiling like that, all warm and familiar and fond.

“Would you believe I baked them?” Harry asks. Liam tilts his head like he’s considering.

“Suppose I would, if you asked me nicely,” he says. It comes out a bit too genuinely. Liam bites his lip, wishing he’d made a different joke.

“Well, I would’ve done, if I’d had time,” Harry says, “but the band's been here all week for recording. Got these at the bakery where I used to work as a lad, though. Still remember the recipes.”

Liam tries to suppress his curiosity over the glimpse into Harry’s life and his past— he’d spent all Saturday and Sunday studiously avoiding all things Harry Styles, and Liam doesn’t want to break his streak so soon. He looks back at the fairy cakes. Fairy cakes are safe. “Are there different flavors?” he asks.

“No, they’re all vanilla-coconut. But these ones with the candy buttons are gluten-free, see, and the ones with the orange glaze are vegan.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you.” He reaches down, ruffling Lucy’s hair. “I’m sure Emilia is gonna love them.”

And Liam doesn’t know why, but Lucy’s looking up at Liam instead of Harry when she asks, very sweetly, “Can I have another cupcake for breakfast?”

Liam lifts an eyebrow. “Another, huh?”

Harry growls, reaching for Lucy, her squealing and trying to escape as Harry covers his daughter’s face with a big hand, pulling her against him to shush her. “You little traitor,” he scolds. “That was supposed to be our secret. Now your teacher thinks I’m a terrible dad and he hates me.”

Lucy squirms free, giggling at her dad. “Nuh-uh! He’s laughing, see?”

“I’m not,” Liam says. He’s definitely laughing. He tries to pull his teeth together, bite his lip until it stops turning up at the corners. When that fails he settles for hiding his mouth under the back of his hand.

Harry clucks his tongue. “No, s’no good, mate— eyes are a dead giveaway.” He tucks his own hands into his jacket, rocking on his heels, not yet making any kind of move towards the door. After a few seconds, his grin slides into a more intent expression, and Liam’s laughter settles in his chest and stops, echoing hollowly.

Well. After that text from last week, Liam had sort of suspected this might be coming. He bends to Lucy, handing her the sheaf of papers from the desk where he’d left off setting up for the morning writing assignment. “Here, button, want to help pass these out for me? Two pages per seat, please— there’s a girl.”

Liam straightens after she’s skipped off, fighting the urge to cross his arms over his chest, telling himself not to make a mess of this, telling himself to keep it professional. It’s just so tricky, is the thing, when he’s already crossed that line and isn’t entirely sure he’s managed to drag himself back over it— especially not with the way Liam keeps flicking his eyes to Harry’s mouth, remembering how it had felt against his own, and with the way Liam’s fingers curl and uncurl by his sides, remembering how he’d fisted them into the soft cotton of Harry’s shirt, knuckles pressed in between the loose sprawl of his shoulderblades.

It’s already a mess. Liam pivots, heading for the other side of the classroom on the pretense of straightening some things up. He knows without looking that Harry’s following him, feeling the drag of him like an invisible tether slung round his middle.

“Listen, Liam, can we talk—” Harry starts, voice lowered, and Liam interrupts him, shaking his head.

“We shouldn’t.”

“Shouldn’t talk?”

“Shouldn’t— you know,” Liam makes a vague gesture, then goes back to stuffing a bunch of cuddly toys shaped like viruses and germs back into the crate they’d slipped out of. Even to his own ears he sounds strangled. “It’s massively inappropriate, Harry, can’t you see that?”

“Inappropriate,” Harry echoes, sounding calm as a still lake, unphased by anything Liam’s saying— but god, why would he be phased. He deals in screaming crowds on a regular basis, by the thousands, cameras in his face, headlines shrieking his business. Liam’s life is so quiet in comparison— pocket-sized next to Harry’s.

Liam wishes he could make himself look at Harry, but he can’t, so he settles for clutching at the kangaroo puppet that’s come into his hands— one of Liam’s favorites, actually, because you can use your pinky to make the little joey wiggle round the pouch— and he says, words coming out in a frustrated jumble, "It’s just, you're one of my parents, yeah? Not like, my literal parent— you know what I mean."

Harry takes two steps closer till he’s within arm’s reach, and he plucks the dumb kangaroo away. Liam fingers are numb anyway, so he lets it go, wishing almost angrily that Harry would stop smiling at him like that: more lopsided than his ones from magazine covers, not as many teeth flashing, dimple in his cheek more like an afterthought than something he’s been asked for. Like it’s Harry’s real smile, and he’s aiming it right for Liam’s heart, cutting through his chest just like an arrow.

“Not really, no,” Harry says, low. “You can call me daddy if you want to, though.”

After a staring at him for a beat, Liam forces out a chuckle. “Mate. That’s a terrible joke.”

“Hey,” Harry draws the word out. “I’ve been told I’m hilarious.”

“By your fans, is it?” Liam says, trying to keep up, joke back, but maybe something in his voice or his eyes or whatever is giving him away, because Harry takes another step nearer, he’s right on top of Liam now, close enough that if Liam wanted to he could get a handful of Harry’s half-buttoned plaid top with hardly any effort at all.

Liam doesn’t want to. He doesn’t.

Harry says, “Do you ever not worry so much, Liam?” looking like he’s drinking Liam in, weighing him in his head, trying to figure him out. It scares Liam just about more than anything else in his life ever has.

Liam shrugs, just a shallow dip of his shoulders. “It’s— it’s a bit of a personal problem,” he says.

Harry makes a humming sound, and Liam doesn’t draw in a proper lungful of air till he’s moved back, returning Liam’s space to him. “Let me know if you’d like some help with that,” Harry says, delivered like a parting shot, all the worse for seeming a hundred-percent sincere.

*

Liam gets a text from Harry that same evening, the first that he’s sent since the one on Friday. Rather than make Liam want to cringe it causes him to laugh, hard enough even that Pepper lifts her head from her paws to look over.

_Luce tells me you had four of the cakes. Hope you left enough for the kids, monster._

Liam waggles his socked foot at Pepper, meaning she should go back to sleep. He texts Harry, _your fault for bringing desert round me innit_. Liam’s struck by another thought so he finds himself sending— _getting your kid to spy for u thats a bit low mate_ straight away after the first.

 _We’re united in our goals .x_ is Harry’s answer to that.

It makes about as much sense as anything else does these days. Liam shrugs it off. But he does notice from then on that the lunches Lucy keeps delivering to him have a few extra biscuits bunged in, and in the one on Tuesday, Harry’d snuck in a post-it note that’d read, _sweet tooth?_ ☺

Liam had glowered at the note in suspicion, wondering what Harry was playing at, if he really was trying to suss out chinks in Liam’s armor, or if Liam was just being paranoid. He tries not to feel too much like a baby deer cowering down in the grass, but it’s difficult— especially when Harry’s next lunch note says: _When am I going to get to cook breakfast for you, Liam._

Liam is so aggrieved that he nearly bins the lunch after reading it. Guilt over wasting food keeps him from actually doing that, though. Why he keeps the note, too, is less easy to rationalize. 

*

Liam’s at the board writing out the vocab words that go along with the reading lesson for after lunch, glancing over his shoulder every few seconds just to make sure the girls are still bent over their seat work and not running amok. Jodie and Alyssa have their heads together in the corner, whispering, but so long as they’re not plotting to unseat the monarchy or anything dire Liam’s willing to overlook it. Even then, so long as they did it quietly, he still might overlook it. It’s been a bit of a morning.

The next time Liam glances back, Lucy’s got her hand up, so Liam caps his marker and goes over to her. He crouches near to her seat, speaking low into the fleeting hush of the classroom. “How can I help you today, Miss Lucy?”

"Mr. P,” she says, “I forgot how to do this part.”

Liam looks over her maths worksheet— the clocks are all filled in beautifully, perfect times, but in the section with the skip-counting it seems she’s managed the tens but got stuck on the rest.

“Alright, button, what’s the first step?” he asks her, and when she holds up both her hands easily, wiggling her short pink fingers, Liam mirrors her, grinning. “Right you are. So, let’s start with the fives, yeah?”

After they’ve sorted the rest of the worksheet, Lucy looks up at Liam in awe. “Are you so smart because you’re a teacher?” she asks him. It’s one of Liam’s secret favorite parts of the job— none of his mates would ever be as impressed that he could come up with a rhyming song about counting by twos on the fly.

“Are you kidding?” he says, shaking his head. “You’re the boffin of the two of us. Wait and see— when you’re in year one you’ll know way more maths than I do. ”

“I’m gonna be in year one?” Lucy echoes, mouse-squeaking a bit with surprise, and Liam can’t help grinning at her.

“Yeah, sweetheart, that’s how it works— year one, then two, all the way up, up, up until you’re in uni, and then finally Prime Minister when you’re all big and grown.”

She looks more concerned by this news than delighted. “Will you still be my teacher next year, Mr. P?”

It’s not like Liam doesn’t know the job he’s signed up for: the sea-changes that come year by year, the rate of turnover that means he’ll have met and taught hundreds, maybe nearly a thousand kids by the time he retires. He’s excited by the idea, honestly— looks forward to teaching his pupils’ own children if he ever gets the chance.

Still, though, Liam finds himself having to hide the sudden pang he feels when he shakes his head at Lucy, telling her, “Nope, not me. Mrs. Keynes will be having most of you lot next, heaven help her— you know Mrs. Keynes, don’t you? With the lovely beaded eyeglasses? She’s brilliant, you’re absolutely gonna love her.”

Lucy doesn’t look inclined to love Mrs. Keynes, not one bit. Her lower lip juts out, and Liam doesn’t sweep her up in a hug when she protests, “But I only want you!” —but it’s very, very close call.

He settles for squeezing her small warm hand in his own, ruffling her curls with the other. He forces his voice as cheery as a caroler’s. “I’ll still be right here, don’t you fret. You can come and visit me whenever you like, okay? It’ll be an adventure, going up a year. You’ll have loads of fun— new teacher, new mates, new lessons— like, you learn about subtraction in year one, doesn’t that sound cool?’’ He laughs at the face she makes, and knowing how fond she is of science he amends with, “And animals, and skeletons, and magnets and things. Wish I could be in your shoes, to be honest.”

“I guess,” Lucy says, not sounding convinced. Her eyes are doing that baby deer thing at him, very large and shiny and hazel-green; Liam can’t take it.

“Hey, it’s a long way off yet, no need to worry about it now. You’re stuck with me all the rest of this year, that’s a promise. There now— can you smile for me, darling?”

She does, and Liam smiles back, and they might’ve gone on like that indefinitely except for that the bell begins to ring for lunch. Liam straightens, the peace of the room broken in the sudden chaos of the girls gathering their things and getting ready to head out and Liam shouting directions and making sure all the Barbie and Power Rangers lunch pails don’t get left behind. 

He sees them off at the queue for the dining hall, and he’s just getting ready to turn and head back to the room for his own lunch when he feels a tug at his hand, and there’s Lucy.

“Can I eat lunch with you?” she pleads, and when Liam hesitates, trying to figure if it’s a spectacularly bad idea or just a regular bad one, she delivers the killing blow with a drawn-out, “Pleeeease, pretty please?”

“Alright,” he caves, and when she’s cheering, he adds, “Just this once, though,” but either it doesn’t dampen her enthusiasm or she just doesn’t believe him. 

They have a picnic for two sitting on the carpet under the styrofoam solar system, eating the lunches that Lucy’s dad’s made for both of them, and in the middle of her singing the song about chocolate creme biscuits from the commercials, Liam loses his head a bit and snaps a picture on his phone. It’s just that she’s reminded him that time is always moving steadily forward, that’s all— that the rule of pupils is that they’re always going to leave their teachers behind them, and it’s best to remember these precious few moments as they happen.

Lucy is clearly quite familiar with the sound of a camera shutter, because she looks up and beams, dimpling at Liam.

“Are you gonna send a picture to Daddy?” she asks, and it’s not like Liam can do anything else after she’s suggested as much. He texts it, along with a message that he hopes sounds suitably platonic.

_mate the goose just nicked all the biscuits haha. good thing tho i’ve been getting fat._

Harry sends back: _Interested in a workout? ;)_

There aren’t enough swear words in the world for the way Liam feels about Harry Styles, sometimes.

*

Lunch duty on Wednesday sees Liam running from one crisis to another— first there’s a year three girl that sprains her ankle trying to swan dive off the swings, and then Liam has to stop all the littler kids from trying to copy her while trying to get the girl’s mates organized enough to help her to the nurse, and then another student gets faint over the sight of a bit of blood. That one he carries to the Nurse’s office himself, then has to sprint back to the playground, worried that someone might have set a fire in his absence— it seems to be that kind of a day.

But the only other crisis he has to resolve before the school day’s out is Lucy coming to him for a hair-band, which Liam doesn’t mind nearly so much.

“Ever think about super-gluing these things in?” Liam asks her as he hands one over from the stash in his drawer— a purple scrunchie with rainbow beads, quite posh— and he’s laughing, just trying to tease, but Lucy gazes up at him mournfully.

“They never stay when Daddy helps me do it. Lou is the best at doing hair stuff— one time she, she did my hair in a plait, and she put this clip in with a bow, and it stayed up all day long!”

Lucy’s mentioned Lou loads of times, and Liam’s thought she might be a girlfriend of Harry’s, or one of his bandmates, or something— this time the question runs up to the tip of his tongue, threatening to jump off, but he bites it back till the inside of his cheek is stinging. Who Harry’s dated, or is dating, or wants to date— it isn’t even remotely Liam’s business.

“Reckon I could still manage a proper plait,” Liam says, shifting his eyebrows at Lucy. “Do have meself two sisters, after all.”

After school, when Liam’s up at the office filling out reports for the two incidents from lunchtime, Liam’s mobile buzzes in his pocket. For a long moment Liam sits with the pen in his hand, staring at the white of the form in front of him, the black lines of ink smearing together as he tries to stare through them. The Headmistress’ secretary calls him out of it, asking if he’s alright. Liam looks up and smiles, eyes blinking, lips closed over his teeth.

“Oh, I’m good, Ms. Mardle,” he says, and hates that it feels like a lie.

He doesn’t check for another hour— not until he’s completely done for the day and bundled up into his coat, chin and mouth tucked into the folds of his scarf and his gloves pinned under his am, waiting to go on, it’s just he needs his thumbs to navigate the mobile buttons.

It’s every bit as bad as Liam’s instincts had told him it would be: a text from Harry, of course it’s a text from Harry, and it’s a picture of Lucy done up with the pigtail plaits Liam had given her, bright blue ribbons standing out against the black of her curls.

 _I like what you've done with our kid .x_ Harry’s written.

Liam puts his mobile away in his satchel without answering, and he unlocks his bicycle, and he goes home. It takes Liam an hour of hard running that evening— lungs heaving like ship’s sails, the sun set behind gray overcast skies ages ago and the night empty and dark around him, the warm lights of the houses mocking him for being out here in the cold— before he can make himself believe that Harry doesn't really mean it when he says that. It’s just a joke, a throwaway comment that’s like nothing to Harry even if it makes Liam nearly want to get down on the floor and beg. 

He goes to bed feeling worn like an old jumper, threadbare and too thin, and only the heavy twin weights of Tony and Pepper curled up against him keep Liam from shivering in his dreams all night.

*

The second weekend of November is blustery and cold, but the sun’s been moving in and out of the clouds, no hint of rain, so the weather’s probably about as perfect as it can be for the annual Village fete. Liam actually isn’t involved with the organizing this year, so he’s been looking forward to going round the fair like a normal spectator rather than running to and fro with a clipboard in his hand, having to wrangle costumed characters out of duck ponds and teenagers out of the beer tents.

This time all he’s responsible for is Pepper and a frisbee. They walk the half-mile or so down to the grounds together, Pepper sticking close to Liam’s heels, her ears and tail lifting as they get closer like she can already hear the music, smell all the food. When they get to the big field that’s nearest to the marquee for the bands, Liam starts tossing the frisbee for her, laughing as she gallops away across the grass with her red and cream coat shining like a flag against all the green, puppyish in her enthusiasm. Normally Tony would be hogging the frisbee and she wouldn’t be bothered trying to beat him to it, but Pep can get pretty impressive air when she’s got the field to herself. For such a big dog, she can really fly.

They keep at it for a while, Liam in no particular hurry to dive into the fete just yet, and he’s just chucked the frisbee a good long distance when his ears catch on a sharp whistle from behind him. He turns and sees Harry walking across the grass, waving, Lucy at his side and a bunch of other blokes trailing behind— Harry’s bandmates, Liam realizes with a start.

Lucy breaks away at the last fifteen feet, dashing forward to hug him, and Liam laughs as she nearly bowls him over, saying, “What is this, bumper cars? You’re not on the ride yet, sweetheart.”

“Sorry, Mr. P,” she giggles, still clinging to his leg as Harry and the others make it the rest of the way over.

“Fancy meeting you lot here,” Liam says, quirking his eyebrows.

“Liam, you remember the lads,” Harry says, by way of re-introduction. “Lads, Liam.”

Niall sweeps him into a hug for a hello, and Zayn offers one of those casual handslap-fistbump things that Andy’d been forever trying to teach Liam when they’d been in uni, only Zayn makes it look about a million times cooler than Andy ever did.

By then, Pepper’s come jogging back with the frisbee caught triumphantly in her jaw, and Lucy immediately squeals upon sight of her, Liam forgot in the interests of meeting his much more awesome dog.

“She’s sooo pretty!” Lucy enthuses, bouncing in place with her delight, and Liam takes in her fete outfit: purple leggings, fluffy pink tutu, white anorak, red cowboy boots. He bites back a grin, thinking the fashion sense must run in the family. “Hi, Pepper!” Lucy greets her; it confuses Liam until he remembers the coach ride home from Tatton Park, showing all his saved phone pictures to a sleepy and miserable Lucy. Funny that she hadn’t forgot any of that. 

Liam snags the frisbee, and Pepper takes the opportunity to smell Lucy’s outstretched fingers. Pepper’s always been good with kids, so Liam’s not worried, just feels his mouth curl fondly as he watches them— Pep’s nearly as tall as Lucy is.

“Can I go play with Pepper?” Lucy asks, already turning those killer eyes up at him, and Harry chimes in to prompt her with, “Hey, runt— what’s the magic word?”

“Pleeeeease?” Lucy adds.

“Sure, button,” Liam tells her, helpless to do anything else. “Stay close, though. Here, you know your way around one of these?” He hands over the frisbee, only a bit drooly from the fetching Pepper’d done so far.

“Uncle Zayn has dogs, he taught me!” Lucy says, clutching it, and Pepper zeroes in straight away. She only glances back at Liam once, unsure, but when he shoos her off with Lucy she goes; Pepper’s not much fussed about who sends the plastic bird flying out, just so long as she can run and catch it.

“Just the one dog?” Harry says, and Liam catches his concern when Liam turns back to look at him. “Could of sworn you had two of ‘em.”

“Oh, Tony’s at home,” Liam says. He feels restless, suddenly, hands empty and idle. And cold. He tucks them in under the hem of his jumper, bulging it out over his stomach. “He gets a bit barmy around crowds. I took him to the local Octoberfest one year— nightmare, that was. He literally thought anybody in lederhosen was out to get him.”

“Well, I’m glad I left my dirndl at home, then,” Harry jokes. It’s difficult— impossible, really, not to grin back. Liam tries, but in the end he can’t manage it.

“Wait— Pepper and Tony, is that what he said?” Louis speaks up. He pushes around Niall, stepping closer to Liam, looking at him in challenge. “So. Iron Man fan, are you?”

Liam lifts an eyebrow at him, keeps his tone deadpan when he answers, “Mate. I am Iron Man.”

Louis eyes him a beat longer, then breaks into a wide grin, white teeth bared as he flicks his hair to the side. “Alright, this one can definitely stay,” he says, seemingly for Harry’s benefit. “I’ve decided.”

Niall hauls Louis back, apologising for him existing and being allowed to speak. Liam forces a chuckle, eyes sliding away from Harry’s face. Instead of asking where he can stay, Liam clears his throat, asking, “Ah, so— how’s the recording coming along? Lucy tells me you lot are always banging away in the basement.”

“We’re serious artists doing serious work, Liam,” Harry says.

Liam laughs, and Niall says, “Yeah, it's sick, man, really good. Oughta come hang with us and listen sometime.”

Liam glances back behind him— checking in on Lucy and Pep, they seem to both be chasing after the frisbee, Liam’s not quite sure how that’s meant to work— and he scratches his chin against his shoulder, finally answering with an awkward: “Yeah, might do. I— yeah, I’m just massively busy, is the thing.” 

He doesn't miss the way Niall exchanges looks with Harry, shrugging slightly as if to say, ‘Bro, I tried.’

Zayn breaks into the conversation, either purposefully or accidentally coming to Liam’s rescue— he doesn’t care, he’s still grateful. “Hey, bro, you’re the local here. You wanna, like, show us around?” 

“Me? What about Harry?” Liam asks. He’s suddenly a whole lot less grateful. Today was supposed to be a chance to relax, have fun, take it easy. Spending his Saturday in Harry’s company, with Lucy, and Harry’s mates along, too— that was not how Liam’d imagined his day going.

“But Harry’s useless, isn't he,” Louis says, like a statement of fact. Harry frowns, but doesn’t bother denying it.

Liam supposes if he gets desperate enough he could always fake choking to death on a toffee apple.

*

At first Liam just marvels that they don’t get recognized. He takes his job as tour guide to heart— shows them past the tug-of-war sight, and the face-painting tent, and the rows of Hook-a-Duck and other fair-ground games. They meander through all of it without a crowd of fans rushing forward to mob them like Liam’d been half-expecting. He can’t figure it out, so he asks.

“What are you talking about. We’re incognito, Liam, obviously,” Harry drawls, and he tips back the brim of his ridiculous fedora as if that’s proving his point for him rather than just the opposite. 

The others, alright, they do manage to look more like jobless lads just out of uni rather than the millionaire celebs they are— all of them in ripped jeans that look like they haven’t seen the inside of a washing machine in weeks, jackets that wouldn’t look out of place on the racks of a charity shop, beanies and snapbacks tugged over their hair, sunglasses perched on their noses.

“Nah, we’ve rigged it, see,” Niall says, lifting his sunglasses up his forehead to peer more closely at a few local ladies doing a belly-dancing demo up on a tiny platform stage— which, when Liam looks, he thinks he recognizes Mrs. Brisbane, the town librarian. Niall flicks his shades back down, grinning. “Got our manager actin’ like we’re holed up in some hotel in London, it’s a riot, postin’ fake stuff to twitter. Paps are even campin’ out there, bellends— oh, sorry, Luce. You didn’t hear me say that.”

Louis tosses a handful of popcorn at him from the huge bag of it he’s been toting around, scolding him, “Better watch your mouth, Neil, or somebody might have to watch it for you.”

“If you’re offering,” Niall laughs, throwing some of his own back. It goes awry in the journey, blown by the wind, and ends up scattering all over Zayn’s perfectly-coiffed head.

“Bugger,” Niall says as Zayn turns, slowly and calmly brushing the kernels out of his hair. “Er, I mean, whoops?”

It’s an all-out war after that.

Somehow Niall, Zayn, and Louis get teamed together against Harry, Lucy, and Liam— but Harry’s a more fierce competitor than Liam would’ve thought, yelling war-cries and charging recklessly right into the thick of things, popcorn kernels flying through the air like shrapnel from a bomb. Lucy’s brilliant at distraction, clinging on to Louis or Niall’s arms and legs like a shrieking spider monkey while Liam and Harry take the initiative to unload on them, pelting them with fistfuls of popcorn until they shout truce and run to take shelter behind Zayn. They’re all of them behaving like a group of obnoxious idiots Liam would’ve had to toss out if he were still working the event, but Liam’s laughing so hard that his sides hurt, and they’re winning, so he can’t be arsed to care. Pepper’s the only one who doesn’t get involved— just stands on the sidelines to watch and maintain her dignity.

Liam’s team does win— soundly trounces the others, actually— but Louis sneers and calls it an even draw. Liam’s gracious enough to let it stand.

He’s doing double high-fives with Lucy, both of them cheering still, when he feels Harry’s arm sling heavy across his shoulders. Liam blames how breathless he feels from all the running to and fro; it’s nothing at all to do with Harry tucking up warm against Liam’s side like he was made to fit there, or the slow way Harry’s grinning at Liam as he tells him, “Reckon we make a pretty good team, mate.”

“We did all right,” Liam says, and when he looks back down, Lucy’s swinging Liam’s hands in her own, saying, “Mr. P, my feet hurt now.” She kicks one of her red boots out as if to show him, and Liam doesn’t think— just bends and scoops her up into his arms as easily as if she were made of clouds and candyfloss.

“Suppose a conquering hero can’t be made to walk on hurty feet, can she, darling?” he says, the tulle of her tutu poofing out over his arm like she really is a little cloud. He frees one of his hands, picking stray pieces of popcorn out of the tangle of her hair as she giggles at him.

“I’ve got an extra pair of her trainers in the car,” Harry says, still standing close. “We can switch ‘em out.”

There’s a loud sound squawk of complaint, and Liam looks over his shoulder to see Louis dumping the rest of his bag of popcorn down the back of Niall’s hoodie, presumably as punishment for eating more of it during the battle than he’d thrown. Zayn’s moved off a bit to the side, hand cupped around his mouth as he lights up a cigarette. Lucy prods Liam in the cheek, bringing his attention back.

“Your face is all fuzzy,” she says. “Daddy’s face never gets fuzzy like that.”

“Wanna know my secret?” he tells her. Harry’s heading off already, but he turns and shuffles backward for a few paces, calling to ask the two of them if they’re coming.

Liam leaves the other three lads and starts after Harry, biting down a laugh when Harry stumbles into a troope of jugglers and falls all over himself even more to apologise, then spends a minute showing off his own juggling skills with a few of the balls and pins that had got scattered about.

“Very impressive,” Liam says, laughing. He remembers Pepper, and whistles, and she comes galloping over from where she’d been hoovering up all the scattered popcorn from the grass. Liam tuts at her, and the four of them start together towards the carpark; Louis and Niall are shouting something now about meeting up with them later, and Harry’s humming this one song that Liam can’t quite place under his breath as they walk, shooting sideways grins at Liam and Lucy every few seconds like he’s immensely chuffed about something. Maybe it’s still the flush of victory.

“What’s your secret, tell me, tell me,” Lucy prompts, and Liam ignores her father to heft her more securely against his hip, hushing his voice.

“Promise you won’t tell anyone else?”

“Promise,” she says, even crossing her fingers over her heart.

“Elves,” he tells her, wiggling his eyebrows. “Little elves. They come visit me in the night and glue bits of lamb’s wool onto my cheeks one by one.”

“They do not!” she says, outraged at the whale-sized fib, but she’s laughing.

“It’s true, I swear! Ask your dad if you don’t believe me.” Liam meets one of Harry’s sideways looks with his own, and Harry lifts his eyebrows in return.

“It’s definitely true,” Harry agrees, reaching out to tickle Lucy’s chin, and she squirms away as best she can, giggling, making Liam _oof_ and readjust his hold again so he doesn’t drop her. Harry’s saying, “I just made all the beard-elves angry when I was a teenager; s’why they don’t ever visit me.” Then, “Hey, runt, where’d that frisbee get to?”

Lucy pulls it out from inside her anorak, handing it over. Their walking’s carried them to the edges of the fete by now, a wide open space in front of them, so Harry sends the frisbee whizzing out in a long arc that has Pepper dashing off to catch it, Lucy yelling encouragements after her from the snug circle of Liam’s arms.

Liam can’t believe it’s barely lunchtime. He doesn’t know how much more of a day like this he can take.

*

On their way back in from the car, they run into two students that Liam had helped teach back when he’d been fresh from uni and still a classroom aide; the girls are older now, but they still remember Liam, and they’re apparently mates with Lucy from the playground, play rounders or something. So somehow, just when Liam had been thinking of peeling off with Pep, making a break for it, he instead finds himself standing with Harry in the midst of the row of bouncy castles and slides, watching the girls scamper from one to the other in their socked feet with a dozen other kids. 

Lucy climbs to the top of the tallest one, with the biggest slide, and demands that Liam be the one to catch her. She does it again and again, delighted with the game. Harry’s not helping in the least— just snapping pics of everything on his mobile like he’s a bloody photojournalist. Liam has a fleeting thought that maybe he’ll end up on Harry’s instagram, and he doesn’t know how he feels about that. He tells himself he’s apprehensive, but the flutter in his stomach doesn’t quite seem to fit the word.

Then Harry suggests getting something to eat, and Liam’s distracted with watching Lucy scramble back up the slide, making sure she doesn’t slip, and also stopping Pepper from eating a muddy hotdog she’d found by the rubbish bins, so he says, “Sure, yeah,” and only realizes his mistake after Harry saunters off to the food stands, leaving Lucy completely in Liam’s care. There’s a half a minute where Liam is all set to overthink everything, again— but then Lucy’s announcing she’s going to go down the slide backwards, and ringing Liam’s ears with her laughter, and the other kids are trying to get Pepper to go dive into the ball pit, and Liam’s having to rescue ball after ball from her slobbering teeth— Pep’s, not Lucy’s— and before Liam knows it, Harry’s back and handing him fish and chips, and thankfully a bit of hand-sanitizer and a handful of napkins, too.

They sit at a bench near the little stage to eat— the belly dancers have been replaced by some amateur puppeteers, who Lucy loves— and Harry keeps flaking off bits of his fish to sneak to Pepper, even when Liam tells him he’s spoiling her too much. Harry stuffs a handful of chips into Liam’s mouth to stop his chiding. Liam feels a bit like the world’s tilting sideways under his feet, off its axis, but he just keeps resolutely chewing his food, trying to ignore it. 

After they finish they go to find the other lads. As they walk, Lucy grabs onto both Liam and Harry’s hands at the same time, just like she’d done at Tatton Park. Liam gets stuck staring down at the top of her curly head between them, asking them to swing her, and then Harry meeting Liam’s sideways grin with his own as they do, laughing, and after that, well— Liam can hardly blame himself if he forgets about planning ways to escape.

Louis and Niall turn out to be late-entries in a jam doughnut eating contest— Louis wins, but only because he’d snuck three of his doughnuts onto Niall’s plate, cheating, not that Niall had complained about it— and after wandering around the fete a bit more, they find Zayn over by the booths of the local artisans. They’re mostly old grandmothers selling their handsewn quilts, but Zayn seems really absorbed, anyway, so they leave him to it— only after Harry buys half a dozen of the quilts for himself, insisting they’ll make wonderful Christmas gifts for his mates. Liam pictures some of the celebrities Harry’s been seen out with— rich, glittering, brand-wearing musicians and models and radio dj’s— unwrapping a handsewn quilt from Harry, him looking all proud over it like he is right now, and Liam ends up knocking into Harry’s shoulder and clinging to it from laughing so hard.

When they’re done with that, Lucy wants to go back to the game stands, and the bouncy houses, and the craft corner where she makes a Christmas ornament out of lollipop sticks and glitter. Eventually all their wanderings take them near the edge of the big activities field where the local Fire Department’s got a cricket match for charity going on. Liam expresses a bit of interest in seeing it, and Harry spreads out one of his new quilts to use as a picnic blanket, plonking them all down onto it. Liam stretches his legs out, liking the break— they’ve been on their feet for most of the day. Guiltily, Liam realizes he can’t even remember the last time he’d thought about splitting off with Pep and leaving the Styles duo to themselves. 

Lucy starts on weaving a chain of clover flowers for Pepper who’s dozing off in a weak patch of sun, intent on catching her regular mid-afternoon snooze. Liam watches Lucy wandering around in the grass for a few minutes, gathering a growing pile of the weedy flowers in the folds of her tutu— more than he’s watching the match, to be honest— and it catches him off-guard when Harry’s fingers prod into his ribs, Harry teasing him, “Should I tell you the score, bro?”

“Sorry,” Liam says, turning to Harry, putting on a smile. “Guess I got lost in my thoughts for a bit.”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Harry says. Liam settles back on his elbows, tries to turn his attention back to the match— he mostly follows football and basketball, the thousands of rules of cricket have always been a bit lost on him— but after a minute he feels something plucking at his jumper and he looks, sees it’s Harry again. When he has Liam’s attention back, Harry asks, “Anything in particular on your mind?”

Liam worries his lip, turning over the question that’s been plaguing him for ages now, nearly from the beginning— it’s always felt too intrusive, never quite making it to the tip of his tongue or out into the air— but Harry’s face seems open, like he’s inviting it, and Liam finally asks: “I’ve just wondered— Lucy’s mum. She’s not around anymore?”

Harry only shakes his head like he’d been expecting it, and his tone hardly changes at all when he says, low enough under the music of the fete and the yells of the cricket-players that Liam has to lean closer to hear, “No. She’s gone, that one— long gone.”

Liam waits, patient, and Harry comes out with the rest of the story, all the pieces fitting together as Liam mines them out of Harry’s rambling: how Lucy’s mum had been a fan back in the band’s early days, just before they’d broke big; had gone to all their shows in tiny shit pubs and venues with beer on the floor, and finally Harry’d noticed her and introduced himself. One thing had led to another, of course— he never uses the word groupie, not once— and nine months later, after a crazy show in Amsterdam, Harry had got a call and ended up flying home with nothing but his passport and wallet and the clothes on his back, making it to London in time to hold his new baby girl just a few hours after the delivery.

“The rest of it’s not as nice to hear, I’m afraid,” Harry says, the generous bow of his mouth thinning out. “But, yeah. A year’s long custody battle later, and here we are.” He huffs a laugh. “I always say Luce is my real million dollar baby.”

Harry looks at Lucy, who’s given up on her chains in favor of scattering her ripped-up flowers over Pepper’s fur where she’s flopped over in her sleep with her paws twitching, and his smile comes back, his face gone beautiful with love.

Lucy sees them looking and skips over, the knees of her tights and her fingertips stained green. “Daddy, I have to pee,” she announces.

“What’re you looking at me for? There’s a shrub right there,” Harry tells her, waving his hand at it.

“Daaaddyyyyy, nooo, I have to goooo,” Lucy groans, not in a mood for dad jokes.

“Er, I think they usually set up the porta loos behind the food stands?” Liam tries to be helpful, and bites his lip around his laughter when Lucy starts tugging at Harry as he unfolds his long limbs and gets to his feet, her own legs already hopping in a tell-tale potty dance.

Harry turns back once as Lucy’s leading him off, telling Liam over his shoulder, “You stay put, alright? Stay, Liam.”

He sounds a bit too similar to Liam when he’s directing his dogs, so Liam lifts his eyebrows, calling after Harry, “You going to pat my head for me if I do?”

Harry walks backwards just for a second, his grin wide and suggestive enough to make Liam regret the joke. “If you’d like,” Harry says, and spins back around before Liam can frown at him.

They’ve not got very far off yet— Liam can hear them starting up a loud verse of ‘Old Macdonald’ together when they hit the bottom of the hill— and he rolls over onto his stomach on the quilt, chin pillowed on his arms as he watches them walk away, Harry and Lucy, sees them get smaller and smaller with the distance until finally they’re lost in the crowd.

Liam’s mobile digs a bit into his hip with the angle, like a reminder, and he pulls it out. He’d snapped a picture with it earlier, back when they’d been at the artist stands, and Harry and Lucy had been messing about with some knitted things: Lucy wearing a bright red shawl around her shoulders like a cape, her dad pulling one over his head and clasping it under his chin, pulling a mournful face for the camera like an old Russian babushka. Liam’d been grinning while he’d taken the photograph, and laughing still when he’d moved to fix Harry’s fedora for him, setting it back properly in his hair, and Harry had been smiling, too, and had stood quiet and careful while Liam was close, watching Liam.

Liam looks at the picture now, Harry and Lucy’s faces smushed together on the tiny square screen of his mobile, and his stomach turns over, and the heavy lump in his throat feels like guilt. Because this is a picture that he doesn’t have a proper right to, not really. It’s a picture that shouts ‘family,’ and Liam can’t claim it— not even with as much as he aches to, as much as every fiber of him is straining towards doing exactly that. He should delete the picture; he can’t keep it, it wouldn’t be fair. 

He’s moving his thumb to do just that, actually, when a foot collides with his leg, kicking him. Liam rolls over, shielding his eyes from the orange glare of the sun that’s setting behind them, and he sees Louis and Niall hovering over the blanket. Liam shoves his mobile back into his pocket— he’ll have to remember to delete the thing later.

“Parched, Payno?” Niall says, hefting one of his two plastic pint glasses of beer, and Liam sits up gratefully to take it.

Liam takes a long draught of the beer— he really is thirsty— and after he’s swiped his hand across his mouth he looks up, peering at the two of them more closely.

“Did you know you’ve got icing sugar in your hair?” Liam’s speaking to Niall, but they both look at each other like they’re checking. Then they both shrug.

“D’you know you’ve got ‘disgustingly in love’ all over your face?” Louis shoots back, but his eyes are glittering with humor and overbright like a bird’s, and maybe he’s just already had a few too many beers.

“I haven’t,” Liam says, starting to defend himself, but Niall does it for him, elbowing Louis with the arm that’s not holding his drink.

“Think you’re talking about Styles, bro, ain’t ya?” Niall says, and Louis snickers, hand pressing flat over his stomach.

“Lads,” Liam sighs at them. “Play fair, won’t you?”

“Where’s the fun in that, Liam Payne?” Louis scoffs, but Niall nudges him again and he seems to give, just a bit, looking down at Liam and softening around the edges. “Nah, alright— look, I’ve got to admit, mate. I was a bit skeptical, like, with the way Harry talks you up so much. But you’re not half bad, Payne. Not half bad at all.”

Liam pauses with his beer lifted to his mouth. He can feel his face scrunching up, eyebrows furrowing together. “He— Harry talks about me?”

Niall laughs, a loud hyena cackle of a sound. “Bro. Does he ever shut up about you, is the question.” He launches into a squeaky-voiced imitation, gushing, “‘Ooh, Liam’s so fit, Liam’s so funny, ooh, Liam’s so great with Luce!’”

“Excuse me, Niall, very quickly—” Louis interrupts, gesturing towards Niall’s chest with his beer, face gone serious. “May I ask why you’re pitching your voice so high? Off the mark, innit? Like, have you met our Harry.”

“Have _you_ met ‘im?” Niall shoots back, hardly missing a beat. “Proper embarrassin’ school girl, ain’t he?”

“True, that’s incredibly true. Point taken and acknowledged. Carry on, Neil.”

Liam can’t see how this is playing fair in the least, but before he can get a word in edgewise, Niall’s bending down to slap Liam’s shoulder, telling him, “We’re just takin’ the piss, mate, just fuckin’ with you. Listen, do us a favor and tell Harry we’ve got our own way back, yeah?”

Niall jerks his thumb over his shoulder, and Louis makes an unsubtle gesture with his chin, and Liam looks to see a couple of ladies stood a ways back, seeming like they’re waiting. Louis and Niall must’ve pulled them at the fete. Liam nearly double-takes— yeah, that’s Mrs. Brisbane, one of the women is definitely her, and her mate must be one of the other belly-dancing librarians. Liam decides he absolutely does not want to know.

“Yeah, sure, I’ll tell him,” Liam agrees, and Niall high-fives him by way of saying goodbye, and Louis darts in for a nipple-twist, and then they’re gone off into the sunset, leaving Liam to wonder what the hell had just happened.

*

The sun’s most of the way down by the time Harry and Lucy get back, and the cricket match has finished— Liam can’t say with any certainty which team won— and he’s swirling the dregs of his beer around a bit anxiously when he hears it, catching in his ears like the skidding of a needle across a record: the sound of Lucy crying.

Liam gets to his feet, flinging his cup into the nearest rubbish bin before he moves to go find them, but when he turns they’ve already made it up the hill, Harry with Lucy in his arms, her face buried and wailing against his shoulder.

“Sorry it took so long,” Harry says, wincing, his hand moving soothingly up and down Lucy’s back, but it doesn’t seem to be making a difference. “We had a bit of a meltdown on the way back.”

“Oh dear,” Liam says, immediately sympathetic. “What’s happened?”

“She says her anorak got dirty,” Harry explains. Then he’s bending to set Lucy on her feet, her still wailing, his hands straightening out her clothes and his thumbs swiping at her tear-damp cheeks as he talks to her, trying to reason with her. “Come on, goose, it’s not so bad, is it? Just a spot of dirt. We can wash your clothes, you know we can wash them. Just as soon as we get home.”

“No,” Lucy sobs, shaking her head, just saying it over and over, “No, Daddy, no!”

Harry looks up to Liam, shrugging a bit helplessly. “She’s been like this for the last ten minutes. Reckon she’s all feted out, to be honest.”

Liam’s no stranger to crying children— sees them every day, in fact, you’d think he’d have a tolerance for it— but something about Lucy’s scrunched up face and the broken sound of her breathing through her wails is clenching tight at his heart, hurting almost unbearably. He can see how worn out she is from the long day, exhausted and cold; reason and logic probably aren’t going to penetrate at this point. He has to try to fix this— he can’t not try.

He moves closer, kneeling down next to her in the grass. “Hey, Miss Lucy, what’s all this fuss? If you wanted to trade you could’ve just said so, darling. Here, you want to borrow my jumper? Pretty sure I’ve kept clear of the mud today.”

Sometimes when kids are too upset to be reasoned with, they can be bargained with. It seems to get through to Lucy— she’s slowing down to just sniffling now, turning towards him, scrubbing her hands hands over her ruddied cheeks. “Okay,” she mumbles, agreeing to the trade.

Liam reaches behind his head, shuffling it off. With Harry’s help they get Lucy out of her anorak and into Liam’s jumper. It’s so big on her that she practically drowns in it, the cream color making her look a bit like a wooly lamb, but Liam tickles her ears and her nose and her dimple as they emerge through the neck of it and in less than a minute she’s giggling at him, rubbing at her ears and face with his sleeves, [all her tears forgot](https://24.media.tumblr.com/fa82ba8de135ea73092e74d83ccf81bf/tumblr_mzj4mkSlB51ql9qomo3_500.png).

“Looks like you’ve got a bit of growing to do before you’ll fit,” Liam tells her, giving up on scrunching the sleeves. They’re a lost cause, hanging down so far past her hands that he’d have to roll them twenty times over to make them fit.

“What do you say, Lucy-goose,” Harry says, poking her ribs through the baggy knit.

“Thank you,” she tells Liam, smiling beatifically. He laughs as he stands, reaching down to smooth her fringe off her forehead.

“You’re welcome, button. Hey, maybe you’ll be a trend-setter like your dad, yeah? Start a fad for giant clothes.”

She makes a noise of assent, distracted with slapping the loose ends of the sleeves together like a baby seal. Harry moves closer to Liam, Lucy’s anorak folded in his arms against his chest, but he just bumps his hip lightly against Liam’s own, saying, “Thanks, Liam,” in a lowered voice, grateful and sincere.

Liam flicks Harry half a smile, but it feels unsteady on his mouth, ready to fall off at any moment. This whole day has been like a window into a life that Liam could have, that he’s dreamed about for so long, one that Harry seems to be offering up to Liam on a silver platter— and he doesn’t know what to do, how to react. It’s only that he’s scared— cold sweats shaking in the night terrified, actually— that if he reaches even an inch towards what he wants then it’s going to get jerked away from his fingertips. So he can’t reach for it— he can’t watch it go up in front of his eyes like smoke. He couldn’t take that; it would rip things up inside him that he’s not sure he knows how to heal.

Harry’s stepping sideways, pulling his mobile from his coat to look at the screen. “Zayn’s just texted me,” he says, glancing up to Liam in an apologetic way. “He says Niall and Louis have buggered off, he’s waiting at the car.”

“Ah, right, they stopped by here, wanted me to tell you the same thing.” Liam moves towards the quilt, starts gathering it up and folding it, nudging Pepper awake on the way. “Suppose you ought to get headed out, then.” The wind’s picking up a bit, the chill suddenly cutting through the thin sleeves of Liam’s henley like they’re tissue. He’s more than ready to go home himself.

Liam ends up walking them back to where the car’s parked for a second time, this time with him carrying Harry’s stuff while Lucy zonks out in her dad’s arms. She’s asleep against his chest before they even make it past the strings of lamps at the edges of the fete; proof that she’s had enough of the day, too.

Zayn’s leaned up against the side of the Range Rover when they make it there, smoking with one hand and texting with the other. Liam talks to him while Harry gets Lucy and then all the souvenirs tucked away inside the car.

“Have a good time at the Holmes Chapel fete, biggest in the county?” Liam asks Zayn, tucking his empty hands into his trouser pockets, shoulders hunching up with the cold. It’s fully night by now, sky gone purple instead of orange, and Liam would swear the temperature is dropping by the second.

“Yeah, it was wicked,” Zayn says, taking a last drag from his cigarette before stubbing it out with the toe of his scuffed Doc Martens. “Might be back next year with art of my own actually. Could like, sell a few prints for charity and stuff.”

“That sounds amazing, mate,” Liam says. “I’m sure the village would love to have you.”

Harry finishes getting Lucy’s dead weight buckled into her car seat, shutting the door, and he turns back to Liam after he does. They just look at each other, Liam knowing exactly what he should say next: ‘Goodbye, have a good night,’ except his mouth has gone numb. The words won’t come out. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that he doesn’t want to say them; doesn’t really want this to be the end.

Pepper seems done with sniffing each of the car’s tires, and she comes back to Liam, leaning against his knees and yawning. Neither Liam nor Harry have spoken yet.

Zayn clears his throat into the silence. “Yeah. I’ll just be in the car, then,” he says, eyebrows making it obvious that he thinks they’re both idiots, and he walks round to the passenger side. Liam hears the click of the door, and then they’re alone, him and Harry— and Pepper, again— for the first time since that night in Liam’s kitchen.

“I could give you a ride back,” Harry offers, hands stuck deep in the pockets of his coat, mirroring Liam’s stance. “C’mon, Liam. It’s freezing, yeah?”

Liam resists the urge to rub his arms. They’re all stood out in gooseflesh, but at least it doesn’t show with the long sleeves. “Cheers, but nah,” he says, looking down and rubbing Pepper’s head instead, trying not to be jealous of her thick fur. “We’re good to leg it. My place is only five minutes from here.”

“Hmm,” Harry says quietly, after a pause of a few seconds. “S’pose I thought you were further away than that.”

Liam’s mouth feels numb again, but his heart’s started pounding slow and erratic, thumping heavy off-beats against his sternum. “Well. I’m not,” Liam manages to say, lifting his chin to meet Harry’s eyes.

Harry looks back at him, the twilight laying heavy shadows over his face, drawing them under his lips and nose and chin, and it’s nearly impossible for Liam to read his expression. But then Harry’s saying, “Here, wait— don’t have an extra coat, but there might be something around.” Harry opens up the driver’s side, leaning over across Zayn— who’s back on his mobile, steadfastly ignoring Harry— to dig around in the glovebox. Liam hears a low, “Ha!” just before Harry emerges with a thick plaid scarf clutched in his hands.

“Come here,” Harry says, turning back, beckoning Liam closer. Liam hesitates, then takes the first step, and the second comes even easier. Then they’re only a few hand’s-breadths apart, and Harry’s reaching forward and winding the scarf around Liam’s neck, and he’s saying, “There, should be a bit better,” and it is, actually— Liam’s not noticing the cold at all anymore. But that might have a lot to do with the way he’s stuck staring at Harry’s mouth more than anything else— Liam’s body heating up over the memory of Harry’s weight pressing him back up against the kitchen counter, Harry’s tongue licking in hot and slow behind Liam’s teeth.

“Thanks,” Liam says, breaking his gaze away. He looks down at the scarf, lifting one hand to touch it distractedly, fingering the cashmere. It’s a good knit— Burberry, probably. “I— yeah. Cheers.” He looks up again, smiling. “I can pass it to Lucy to give back to you. Monday, or whenever.”

“Keep it,” Harry murmurs, hands still on the scarf, tucking it in. Liam hadn’t noticed when they’d drifted so close, closer than before, but now there’s hardly any more space left between them. Harry’s saying, “What’s mine is yours, mate.”

“Harry. You can’t—” Liam says, then trails off at a loss, his heart hammering in his own ears so loud that he thinks there’s no possible way that Harry can’t hear it, too; that everything Liam wants must be laid open like the pages of book on him. Then Harry’s saving Liam from having to answer by leaning forward, the hand he has on Liam’s neck tugging him the rest of the way in. Liam goes unresisting, eyes fluttered shut before Harry’s lips even land properly on his own.

Harry’s mouth feels so warm against Liam’s cold one, and he can’t help sinking into it, letting himself have this— but only for a minute, or maybe half of one, and then he’s pulling back against Harry’s grip, and Harry lets him go, his breath sighing out soft on Liam’s cheek.

“Goodnight, Liam,” Harry says, saying what Liam had been reluctant to, getting there before Liam can say it first.

Liam supposes that’s fitting.

*

It’s been a trying week.

At school, Liam has to unexpectedly sub in as a detention supervisor when Mrs. Rosbough calls out sick with the flu, and the Headmistress had specially asked Liam if he could help out at the Academy’s sister school, and so the extra hour he could’ve spent doing prep work he instead has to spend frowning at stroppy teenage girls who have to copy lines of ‘I will not smoke in the toilet,’ or ‘I will always follow the Academy’s uniform guidelines,’ or ‘I will not call the Headmistress a munter.’ They’re meant to be, anyway, but mostly the girls just scowl at their desks or toss paper planes at Liam if he so much as turns his back for a moment. It’s times like these when Liam’s especially glad he teaches Reception years.

But he can’t blame the kids— he’s been dead bored, himself, counting the loud clicks of the clock in his head, feeling like he’s gritting the tedious silence in his teeth. The worst part of being so idle is Liam has nothing to distract him— there’s no work, no craft project for him to do, nowhere for him to run— nothing at all to keep him from thinking about the picture in his phone that he hasn't yet brought himself to delete, or all the texts that Harry’s been pestering Liam with ever since the weekend, usually some variation of ‘come round.’

Monday, Harry had sent: _Come round for supper. Still owe you for being our tour guide .x_

On Tuesday: _We’re having chicken parm tonight, you should come round._

Liam had kept his replies short, sending back only— _i can’t,_ and then, a bit desperately— _its a bad idea._

Harry’s reply to that had been: _Nothing is ever bad about chicken parm, Liam,_ and Liam honestly hadn’t had any clue how to answer him.

Wednesday had been insufferable. There had been a whole horrible string of texts in the morning, each of them battering at Liam’s defenses like rocks flung from a ballista:

_Luce says A Bug’s Life is the bext Pixar movie ever, what’ve you been teaching her._

_My vote’s for Monsters Inc personally, reckon it’s the clear winner._

_You should come round and we can have a marathon. Only way to tell for sure._

Liam’d had to turn his mobile off and shove it in a bloody drawer just to keep from going mad before lunchtime.

Thursday had been even worse, if that was possible. He hadn’t heard anything from Harry all day, not a peep— not until late, when Liam had been in the utility room pulling the last load from the dryer, fending Tony off from basket-diving into the clean towels with one hand and checking his mobile with the other. He’d almost chucked it and himself into the washing machine after reading Harry’s text. _Luce’s not a fan of my bedtime stories, she just told me twice to get to the point. Bet you’d be pro at this, wouldn’t you .x_

And now it’s the end of the week, and Liam’s sat here in detention with nothing to do except to think about that text from last night, and all the ones that had come before it, and the student in the desk directly across from where Liam’s sat in front to supervise has five different Lepidoptera badges decorating her schoolbag, and Liam would swear the four walls of the classroom are closing in on him by the minute.

If he’s being honest, he’s got a bit gun-shy with his mobile— wary to look at it, flinching each time it so much as chirps. Just the buzz from his trouser pocket is enough to bring him out in a sweat.

So after Liam gets home that evening, and after he sets his bicycle against the side wall, and the climbing ivy on the porch eave’s dripped more rain down the back of his neck, and after he lets his dogs in from the garden and they’ve muddied up the floor and his trousers in their enthusiasm to say hello, and after he throws off his trousers and cardigan in exchange for joggers and a ratty top to go for a run, only making it to the Robinson’s drive before the cold and the damp are forcing him to turn back, and after he’s downed two beers and a microwave pizza and split the last half between Tony and Pep because he didn’t have the appetite for it, each bite sitting like lead under the slosh of beer in his stomach— it’s only then that Liam sees he’s got another new text.

He takes a resigned swig from his bottle, fortifying himself, but it turns out to be just the usual plea from Andy, same as every week. _London bro, Loooooonnnnnndon!!!_

Liam stews on it a bit. He gets through half an episode of Hell’s Kitchen, plays the drinking game with himself where every time Ramsay drops the f-word Liam takes a pull— and by the time his head is starting to swim, Liam’s got an answer for Andy.

Rather than begging out like he normally does, Liam picks up his mobile and squints at it, slowly typing: _yeahhhhhhhhh alright. your on bro._

*

Liam is absolutely wankered.

The club they’re at is new to Liam— Fresh Buddha, Fancy Buddha, something like that. Anyway, it’s some place Andy’s been raving about for months, and Liam’s fairly sure that means Andy’s got his number scrawled on a stall in the girl’s loo somewhere.

As soon as they get inside, the bouncer waving Andy past like they’re mates, Liam takes it all in at a glance— and his glance says this place is crawling with uni girls in low-cut tops, drinking Redbull and vodkas like it’s god’s gift to the world of alcohol. It’s obvious why Andy comes here so much. 

Liam might’ve been hoping for a proper pub crawl, but he figures tequila is tequila wherever they sell it, and tries to make up for the shit ‘Rock Your Body’ remix that the dj’s spinning by setting up a line of shots on the bar. Andy matches him shot for shot, cheering him on and pressing a bottle of Heineken into Liam’s hand for a chaser, and then they head out to the overcrowded dance floor for a bit, pretending like their moves are still cool, and then back to the bar to repeat the first few steps. After that, Liam mostly loses track of what he’s drinking, but there seems to have constantly been a glass of something or another in his hand since he’s been here, so. Mission nearly accomplished.

Andy tries it on with three different birds, but none of it pans out into more than a couple drinks or dances. When he drifts back to the bar after his third miss, Andy buys them both another round and asks Liam if he sees anyone likely. It takes a beat for the question to sink in, but when it does Liam furrows his brow and turns to survey the crowd, propping his elbows back against the bar for balance when the movement makes him feel like he’s sloshing around.

Liam drags his gaze from one guy to the next, reluctantly pulling his eyes along like they’re on strings. There’s a nice variety to look at, at least: tall and short, dark and fair, built and lean— but no one has Liam’s eyes lingering for overlong. He turns back around, leaning forward onto the bar now, picking up his rum and coke to swig the rest of it down.

“Well? Gonna work the old Payno magic?” Andy asks. He’s at least as pissed as Liam is— easy to tell with the slouch of his shoulders, and the way he’s talking much louder than the volume of the music really calls for, slurring all his vowels like he’s whinging them.

Liam winces away, then lifts his hand with his empty glass, signaling the bartender to bring him another rum and coke. “Reckon I won’t,” he shrugs, setting the glass down, the clink against the wooden top sounding like the tap of a gavel, pronouncing Liam doomed to be lonely and unloved for all of eternity. “Not like, the scene for it, innit?” he says, just the first excuse that comes to mind, his tongue feeling loose with all the alcohol he’s swallowed past it.

Andy slings his arm across Liam’s shoulders, looming over him like a giant, declaring with all the conviction of a best mate and someone who’s very drunk combined: “Come on, bro. You could pull any bloke in here, like. Mate, you could— don’t give a fuck how straight he is.” Liam just shakes his head, and Andy shakes Liam’s shoulder with his hand, jostling him and putting wrinkles in Liam’s denim top that have him frowning. Andy’s taking his job as a wingman far too seriously, but in fairness it’s really been an age since Liam’s come to London like this.

“Is it this club?” Andy slurs, prodding Liam some more. “Knew you wouldn’t like this club, this club is shit, yeah? You wanna go to Ricardo’s? You wanna go to Ricky Rick’s? The old stomping grounds? We used to go there all the time, remember that? Think that one bartender got your name tattooed on his arm, like. Swear to god, mate.”

Liam considers it for half a second, then shakes his head again. Liam knows it’s not the club’s fault, it’s his own; his fault for thinking too many depressing, grown-up thoughts— stuff the twenty year-old version of himself would never have entertained. Thoughts like what’s the point of a shag, right, if after you don’t also want to call that person at work just to ask how their day’s going, or argue with them over who’s turn it is to take the rubbish out, or wrestle on the couch over who gets the telly remote.

Liam would like to blame all the shots of Jack in his belly for the green eyes and curly hair and dimples that he’s picturing through all these thoughts— with a sinking weight in his chest and his stomach, Liam knows. He knows the truth: he was a hopeless case even before the first shot had tipped back and burned its way down his throat.

“Maybe coming here was a mistake,” Liam says. He still picks up the glass that the bartender’s just plonked down in front of him.

“What is with you, bro,” Andy says, sighing at him. “What is this? You’re not yourself lately. Hate seeing you like this, yeah? You’re killin’ me here.”

The rum and coke goes down just as easy as all the other ones before had done, but Liam sets it down after only a few sips, rubbing the back of his hand over his mouth. He hates being like this, too— soggy with booze and impatient with himself, with this gloom that’s only got worse with company instead of better. 

“Think I might head back to my hotel, mate,” Liam says. He rubs his hand over his face, next. It still feels a bit numb. “I think I drank too quick, like— way too quick.”

“Wait. No, I know what it is.” Andy snaps his fingers, poking at Liam’s chest. The music’s got louder, or maybe Liam’s got drunker, but the noise of it feels like it’s hammering in his ears, a throbbing annoyance like a howling dog— it makes it difficult to concentrate on what Andy’s saying, especially when it’s nonsense like, “Broken heart, right? I’m right, right? You haven’t been moony like this since Dan finished with you, mate. That’s what you’re like right now.”

“Christ, Andy.” Liam shoves his finger off his chest. “That was years ago. Fuck, like. I’m well over that.”

Andy’s seems undeterred, whiskey sours heavy on his breath as he leans in closer like he wants to make sure Liam hears him. “I’m just, like— no hang on, I’m just comparison— I’m like, comparing the situations, bro. Bro. Liam.”

Liam stops shaking his head to level a glare at Andy, though it’s probably none too steady of one.

Andy persists. “So, what happened— that’s what happened? You meet some bloke?”

“Yeah,” Liam says, chewing his lip. The sting of his teeth feels like it’s coming from far away. “I dunno. Kind of.”

Andy continues to hound him, absolutely dogged in the way he’s slurring out his questions so quick Liam can barely keep up with them: “And you fancied him? He fancied you? Fell into bed? Shagged it out? Was the sex bad? Did he already have a boyfriend? Already have a girlfriend? Still living with his mum?”

Liam finds he’s laughing in spite of himself, and he digs an elbow into Andy’s stomach. He’s missed them hanging out. “Worse than any of that,” Liam tells him, mouth twisting wryly. Maybe alcohol can’t reprogram the way he feels, but it does make it easier to admit the next bit, the words sliding themselves off of Liam’s tongue like they’d been perched there and waiting for the chance— “He’s Harry Styles,” Liam says.

“Harry Styles,” Andy echoes back, then, loud enough that Liam winces. “Styles, what, like that singer from that band? From that picture in The Sun?” Andy’s hooting with laughter by now. “Wait, like— you honestly fancy Harry bloody Styles?”

Liam drops his face into his hands, groaning. “No, like, he makes good sandwiches?” he says muffled into his palms, feeling how flushed his cheeks are. His head’s still trying to swim away from him; holding it in place seems like a good idea. “He’s a good person? He’s like, really, really fit?” He groans again. “Whatever. Might do.”

“Fuck off— you sound half in love with the bloke,” Andy says.

Liam lifts his head at that, too quick so the room’s spinning, and he’s squinting to make Andy’s face come clear faster when he asks, too hopefully, “Only half? Really, only half?”

Andy bursts out laughing, gasping out between breaths and wiping his eyes, “Oh my god, Liam. Liam, Liam, you’re too much, mate. Bless you, oh god, bless.”

Liam puts his head back down, this time on his folded arms on the sticky bartop, suffering through the laughter until Andy winds down. When he finally does, Andy says, “Well that’s your Christmas gift sorted, innit?”

It’s too difficult to lift his head properly again, so Liam settles for turning so that his stubble scrapes along his forearm, till he can frown sideways and upwards at Andy in confusion.

“Like, they’ve got like loads of merch and shit, haven’t they?” Andy says. “What’s your t-shirt size again?”

Liam laughs, finally— breaks, is more like. He laughs against his folded arms on the top of the bar, and if it gets a bit hysterical sounding, well, Andy’s a good mate. He doesn’t call Liam on it, just pushes Liam’s rum and coke back into his hand.

*

Liam’s still a bit hungover from the weekend— stuck with a nagging headache behind his temples that a handful of paracetamol with his tea this morning hadn’t quite been able to fix. It makes him painfully aware of the sound of women’s shoes coming down the corridor towards the Nurse’s office, each heavy click seeming to jab in and echo around behind his eyes.

He closes them, wincing, but it’s just for a moment before Liam makes himself stand up from the chair he’d been sat in, straightening his waistcoat and dusting the seat of his trousers so that he looks at least marginally prepared and presentable by the time the footfalls stop outside the door.

Liam turns his head, flashing half a smile towards Emilia who’s still sat hunched and a bit pale-looking on the end of one of the beds. “Alright, sweetheart?” he asks, soft, just as the door unlatches and swings open. Emilia nods with her eyes already turning towards the door, watching her mum storm into the room, Headmistress Durbsworthy following along on her heels.

Emilia Cuthbert is a clear echo of her mother— willowy and blonde, but the pinched look that Mrs. Cuthbert’s wearing is all her own. She goes to her daughter, first, looking her over— she at least does that— but she doesn’t waste much time before rounding on Liam, the rain-damp hem of her designer trenchcoat flaring around her knees with the movement, her arms with their manicured nails crossing one another, everything about her telegraphing hostility.

Liam had honestly thought this might be coming— ever since the Headmistress had called down to the Nurse’s office in advance, telling Liam to stay put with Emilia when he’d already been set to go back to his class and the rest of his students, telling him in a weary tone that Mr. Applegate’s aide from across the hall was going to stay watching them a bit longer, asking if there was there anything in particular they should be working on or revising.

“Well?” Mrs. Cuthbert says, “Am I at least going to receive some sort of explanation?”

Liam doesn’t wince, even if the sharpness of her voice isn’t doing any favors for his headache, but he can’t help glancing towards the Headmistress before he answers, a bit hesitantly, “Well. It was nothing too serious, to be fair. The class was in the gym playing a game, and Emilia came up to me and said her chest was feeling a bit tight. I had her rest, got her inhaler for her— that was that. She’s well recovered— fit as a fiddle, now, actually.” He turns another smile Emmy’s way, a reassuring one, and she manages to return it.

“I don’t think any asthma _attack_ should be thought of as not serious,” Mrs. Cuthbert says. Then she demands, “And just why was my daughter running around when she has a doctor’s excuse explicitly saying she’s exempt from sport and the like?” 

“It was more of a practical lesson, really,” Liam explains, holding back from saying the words ‘Solar System Dodgeball’— he doubts it would help put the woman any more in sympathy with him. “I did ask Emilia ahead of time if she felt up to it, and she told me she wanted to participate with the rest of the girls.” Had begged Liam to be able to play, actually, but Liam leaves out that bit, too.

“Well of course she wouldn’t want to be left out the fun and games,” Mrs. Cuthbert says, her tone even more strident. “But it’s not her place, nor yours for that matter, to make that decision for her. Furthermore, and the thing I personally find the most disturbing— once Emilia started having her asthma, why wasn’t an ambulance called immediately? Is that the policy of this school— to take risks with children’s lives?”

“Emilia’s episode seemed like it was a fairly mild case, from my experience,” Liam says, doing his best to not raise his voice to meet Mrs. Cuthbert’s volume, trying to keep steady and reasonable as he can. “I thought she’d be able to get herself through it with her inhaler. Calling the paramedics might have worried her, maybe brought on the attack even worse.”

From the look on Mrs. Cuthbert’s face, it’s coming increasingly clearer that Liam could sound like the bloody Dalai Lama and it wasn’t going to deter this woman from her warpath. It’s especially clear that she’s out for blood when she tells Liam, very rudely, “In your experience, is it? And what experience could you possibly have, Mr. Payne, being so young— this is your first teaching post, is it not?”

Liam fights down the urge to lift his hands and rub at his temples where his headache is still throbbing away. He doesn’t bother to try explaining how he was a teacher’s aide for three years of uni, and how he’d volunteered at an after-school activities center for disadvantaged kids on the side, and that he’s dealt with health issues and injuries— mild and severe— enough times to count on both hands and even some toes— there’s no point in it. Nothing he could say would redeem himself to Emilia’s mum; not when she so obviously needs someone to blame for what happened, for the fact that she’d had to be scared for her daughter and unable to be here to help.

The Headmistress speaks up at last, and it’s on Liam’s behalf— saying how all the staff at Puddington Lake are very qualified, so on and so forth— but Mrs. Cuthbert bursts in with an interruption, saying, “No, I’m sorry, but this is really inexcusable. I’m going to have to speak to my husband about this— I don’t think Emilia should continue in Mr. Payne’s class anymore, it’s too much risk.”

“But Mum,” Emilia says, the raspy distraught sound of her voice breaking Liam’s heart. “I don’t want to leave my friends! I like Mr. P’s class!” She’s stood up from the bed, coming over to cling to her mum’s coat, face screwed up and drained of color just like it’d been when she’d come over to Liam during the dodgeball game. It’s making him remember the way his stomach had dropped as she’d told him how her chest hurt— how he’d forced himself to stay even and steady as he’d given instructions to all the girls— getting them to sit on the bleachers, keeping them calm for Emmy’s sake, having Lucy bring him Emmy’s backpack so they could fetch her inhaler out of it. They’d all done remarkably well, he’d been so proud of them— but Lucy and Emilia especially. He remembers watching Lucy clinging to Emilia’s hand, taking her cues from Liam; echoing him when she’d told her mate how everything was fine, how Emmy was going to be okay, how she should just keep taking those nice, slow breaths in and out.

So maybe it’s as much for Lucy’s sake as Emilia’s when Liam tries to protest as well, saying, “Mrs. Cuthbert, I’m not sure that’s best for Emmy. It’s already so late in the term— transferring her away from her classmates might end up being a massive setback for her learning, especially if she’s going to be so upset.”

The pinched set to Mrs. Cuthbert’s mouth draws in even tighter, and she tugs Emilia against her side with a protective arm around her shoulders. She says, “I think, as her mother, I can be the judge of what’s best for my daughter.”

Headmistress Durbsworthy clears her throat into the tense silence that follows, and starts making placating motions towards Mrs. Cuthbert, talking about getting everything settled later, how maybe it would be best at this time for Emilia to go home excused for the rest of the day— though, when Liam glances at the clock, he sees there’s only twenty minutes or so left before the bell rings.

Liam follows them into the empty hallway, relieved for the incident to be at an end even if it had gone so horridly. But Mrs. Cuthbert apparently has one more parting shot to deliver.

“You haven’t any children of your own, do you, Mr. Payne?” she asks, turning only sideways to him, Emilia’s hand clutched tight in hers, Emilia still sniffling into the sleeve of her school blazer, face gone wet with tears. Liam can’t look at her— can’t look anywhere. He drops his eyes to the wooden paneling of floor, worn and scuffed from the hundreds of plimsolls and Mary Janes and boots that clomp along it every day.

“I don’t, no,” he says, glad when his voice comes out so steadily.

“I thought as much,” Mrs. Cuthbert says, cold and condescending. “If you did, you’d be able to understand.”

Liam remains where he is, not answering, only watching Emilia and Mrs. Cuthbert walk away down the corridor, her heels once again clicking like hammers into nails. 

After they’ve gone, the Headmistress pats Liam’s arm as if in sympathy, and it takes everything he has not to flinch under it. Liam’s positive he doesn’t, though— he’s sure he can’t be showing anything on his face; he can’t be, because he feels too numb— too much like it would be easier to stay here in this spot and never move then to try and take a step anywhere, forwards or backwards, and risk shattering like a dropped piece of glass.

“Don’t worry about Mrs. Cuthbert,” she’s saying, going on reassuringly. “We’ll get her sorted. Just needs a wing of the library named after her or her husband— water fountain, something like that. She’ll settle herself down.”

“Right,” Liam says, clearing his throat till the words come out normally. “‘Course, Ma’am. Reckon I’ll head back to my class, now.”

“Oh, I already told Miss Baker she’d be subbing in for you the rest of the day. You can go home, Payne, you’ve more than earned it.”

Liam wants to protest, but then he remembers the day is nearly over, anyway— nothing really left to do by this point except for having the girls get their things together, see them out to the pick-up area. It still feels odd to nod and agree, and odder still to shuffle off to the staff room, and sit there with his arms on the table, hands flat against it, feeling empty and idle, waiting because he’s hardly going to leave without cleaning up, is he, and he still has to organize papers and materials for tomorrow’s lessons. There’s always so much to be done.

Still though, even after the bell’s rung for the last time, it’s a long while before Liam gets up from his chair.

*

Liam doesn’t get home till well after dark that evening, having stayed late filling out his part of the medical report, then for tidying, then for writing out his lesson plans well into December, and it’s only remembering Tony and Pepper that makes Liam leave his desk at all, really.

But facing his house isn’t as bad as he’d been dreading— the dogs are on him as soon as he steps through the door, since he’s kept them inside with all the rain of the past few days, and after flicking on a few lights, taking off his satchel and coat, it’s simple enough to fall into the comfort of routine. He lets the dogs out to wee, then sets out their supper in the kitchen, turning on the little radio he keeps in the window to hum along with while he washes out his thermos and sets it upside-down in the drainer to dry for tomorrow morning. There’s the plink of rain hitting the window panes, and the crunch of Tony and Pep mowing down their dry food, and the rush of the water from the taps; the house doesn’t sound too empty. Anyway, even if it’s quiet, it’s a familiar quiet. It’s Liam’s quiet.

He dials the volume on the radio up a bit, but it’s only to croon along to the new Maroon 5 single, and he uses his foot to prod Pepper away from Tony’s food dish when she finishes with hers first, like usual. His hands are already wet— he decides he might as well carry on with the rest of the washing up even if it isn’t the typical day for it. He works through the stack of dishes in the sink, cleaning them off one by one, and as he does he can feel the knotted muscles in his back and shoulders loosening up for the first time in hours. He might cook himself a proper dinner for once— there’s chicken cutlets in the freezer, frozen peas. Liam can probably do something with that.

The tension begins to come back after the dj on the radio announces that ‘Happily’ by Lepidoptra is queued up next. Liam pauses a moment, hands wet with suds as he grips the edge of the counter. It’s only a bloody song, he tells himself, and he tries— he honestly tries, but after the first verse, Harry’s voice rasping low and sweet in Liam’s ear like he’s there behind Liam’s shoulder— like if Liam just turns his head he might see Harry stood at the hob, trying to sneakily prod at Liam with a spatula— he can’t take it. He drops the plate he’s cleaning back into the sink to switch it off, cursing low under his breath.

The rest of the evening is as much of a disaster— Liam’s casserole comes out burnt, and the signal’s gone out with the rain so there’s no telly to watch. He’s desperate enough to try picking up a book, something out of his grandfather’s bookshelves, but he ends up tossing it down after ten minutes. It’s just useless, isn’t it, with the way his eyes keep sliding off the page, unable to concentrate long enough to hold the words together in his head, everything in Liam’s mind going to exactly the places he’s been telling himself he can’t go.

“Oh, fuck this,” Liam mutters. The rain’s pounding away hard as ever, but he still goes into the front hallway to shove his feet into his trainers, pulling his hoodie up over his hair, jamming his keys and mobile into the pockets of his trackies. Tony and Pep trail after him, their nails clicking on the tile, tails flagged and tongues out expectantly.

“It’s raining sheets,” he tells them, making his voice stern. “You don’t want to go out in this mess, trust me.” They insist with their eyes that on the contrary, they do.

“Fine,” Liam says, opening the door. The chill and the damp hit his face like a slap. He really hates running in weather; he just doesn’t know what else to do with himself. “Don’t complain to me when you get all soggy, then.”

*

They’re all soaked in minutes, of course.

In a perverse sort of way, Liam’s glad— being wet and miserable feels like a good enough reason to feel sorry for himself, which is its own sort of catharsis. He runs, the soles of his trainers slapping into puddles and against the pavement, and he lets all the resentment he’s been keeping pent up squirm free from his grip, lets it turn on itself and multiply until he feels eaten up with it.

Everything is Harry’s fault. All of it— this joke, or this chase, or this game— whatever fuck it is, it all started with him— him and his packed lunches, and his texts, and his smiling at Liam in a way that fools Liam for a few handful of seconds into thinking that any of what Harry seems to be offering could be real. But it can’t be real, none of it, because Harry Styles has a life that’s being lived on the front pages of magazines, and caught in the flashes from cameras, and everyone who knows him must want something from him. And Liam’s just like the rest of them, and hates himself for it; he’s tried, but he just can’t help wanting so much. 

It really is Harry’s fault, though, and that’s what’s the worst out of everything— things would be so different if only Harry bloody Styles weren’t so bloody willing to make promises, hundreds of them: all given with the low sweeps of his eyes, and the grins of his mouth, and his fingers tucked coyly into his fringe. But at the end of the day, when it comes right down to it, he never actually says anything that anyone can keep.

The buzz of his mobile pulls Liam back into himself, into the ache of his legs and the furnace bellows of his lungs, the rain-stung numbness of his face. Tony stops running when Liam stops, circling back to him, and Liam takes stock of where they are— the middle of a field somewhere. He vaguely remembers hopping a low fence a while back.

It’s black as sin out here, but lamps along a wooden fence stand out like waymarkers, islands of light in the dark. Liam must have been following them. Pepper catches up to him and Tony, joining Tony in standing at Liam’s feet, their fur curling and their ears tamped down with the wet, both of them looking up at Liam for their cues— following him as blindly as he’d been chasing after the lights.

“Told you you’d get soggy,” Liam chides them, feeling guilty. He pulls his mobile out of his pocket to read whatever text he’s got, not holding out much hope that it might be from Andy, or Ruth, or even his mum— Liam doesn’t have that much luck. He curses when he swipes his thumb over the screen to clear the rain droplets and it backs him out of messaging— finally, though, he gets the text open, and its picture attachment too, bringing his mobile closer to squint at it.

“Bastard,” Liam says, and it comes out half-choked on a laugh, his throat seized up in disbelief. It’s a blurry snapshot of Lucy twirling in Liam’s jumper, the one from the fete— Harry’s captioned it with: _We’re holding your jumper hostage. You should come round and rescue it .x_

Liam turns his face up into the rain, eyes shut, just for a second— but then he wipes his hands over it, slicking the water that’s sitting on his cheeks and in his half-grown stubble. He looks around the empty fields, getting his bearings; he reckons he knows where he is now.

When he starts running again, he doesn’t turn and run back home. He goes forward, spurred on by the renewed anger sitting solid and hot in his chest, gritting his teeth against all the words he’d like to shout until they’re just sounds, until the noise in his head loses meaning and he’s back to where he was at the start of all this— twenty-five and fine with being stuck in a rut. Twenty-five and content with what he’d had before Lucy’s dad came along and ruined everything, dangling his family in front of Liam’s nose like the world’s most tempting sort of carrot.

His feet skid in the mud at the bottom of the hill, but Liam keeps his momentum and hops the fence at the end of it, his trainers smacking load against wet pavement again as he leaves the grass of Farmer Meath’s sheep pastures behind him. He follows the winding narrow road till it joins up with a bigger one. There are houses around him now as he jogs, nice ones, and the house he’s aiming for isn’t the largest one on its particular street, but it’s not the smallest, either.

All the windows of the house are lit up and yellow as he gets closer; each one feels like another promise that Liam isn’t allowed to ask for. The outside light is even on too, like he’s been expected.

He doesn’t know how it happens— but once Liam’s stood on the front steps, and he’s pressed the doorbell with his thumb, it’s like all the anger drains out of him with the touch, run away through the contact of his fingertip. He finds himself at a loss without it; bereft, even, so that when the door swings open and Harry’s standing there, backlit with soft edges and staring at Liam like he’s the last thing Harry expected to find on his doorstep, Liam doesn’t have anything to say anymore— every word that had wanted to punch its way out from behind his teeth is utterly gone.

“That was quick,” Harry says, in his low amused voice. Liam hardly even knows when it got so familiar, when the sound of it became so welcome. “Were you in the neighborhood?”

“I was—” Liam stops, swallowing. His lips are frozen with cold. “I was running,” he says, because he can’t think of any other answer. Tony and Pepper catch up to him, crowding around his legs, and it takes noticing how dripping wet they are for Liam to realize he’s just the same— even worse off, maybe.

Harry seems to notice, too. “Jesus, Liam,” he says, looking Liam up and down. “Did you come by way of the English channel?” He doesn’t wait for an answer— just tugs Liam into the house with a hand in the sopping material of his hoodie till Liam’s stumbling over the threshold, Tony and Pepper skittering in after him.

Lucy comes dashing to the foyer only a moment after her dad’s got the door closed. “Puppies!” she yells, taking in the most obviously important figures in the room.

“Hey, goose, go fetch some towels from the airing cupboard in the hall, please?” Harry tells her, deterring her from her beeline for Tony and Pepper, but she seems happy enough to scurry back the way she’d come, to be helpful.

Liam puts a hand on his hood to drag it off his hair, wincing when it squelches onto his shoulders. Now that he’s stopped moving he’s starting to stiffen up with the cold, feeling the way it’s seeped in down past the layers of clothes and skin into his bones. He aches with it— but that could be from all the running, too. He’s not sure how long they were out for, how long he was running in circles before his feet managed to carry him here. 

He starts tugging at the zip to his hoodie, but his hands are moving slow, clumsy from being frozen, and then there are warmer fingers brushing Liam’s away, taking over for him.

“Here, let me help,” Harry’s murmuring, suddenly a lot closer than he was before. Liam frowns down at Harry’s hands, bemused by their appearance and by the way they’re moving so carefully, helping Liam out of the sodden thing. Liam’s a bit dazed— mystified at how he’s barely able to get his arms and shoulders to cooperate— but when he’s down to his equally sodden t-shirt, it’s easier to feel himself shaking with the cold, to notice how his jaw’s clenched tight to keep his teeth from chattering.

Lucy comes back with an armful of fluffy towels stacked as tall as she is, and Liam only catches a glimpse of her starting to attack Tony and Pepper with them before Harry’s tossing one over Liam’s head, swallowing him up in gray darkness. His brain rattles around a bit as Harry rough-dries Liam’s hair, and Liam wakes up from his trance enough to reach up and fight him off, batting his hands away while Harry laughs.

“Hold still, Pepper! Heyyy, get back over here!” Liam hears, probably from Lucy trying to fight the same battle her father is.

There’s a tug at Liam’s shoe, next. He drops the towel to his shoulders, looking down to see Harry kneeling at Liam’s feet and wrestling with the muddy laces of his trainers. Liam stands where he is and shivers, just watching; it feels like the emptiness of his house had chased him all the way here, dogging Liam’s steps through the rain, and Harry’s just gone and shut the door on it.

“I’m dripping on your floor,” Liam says, finally finding his words; they come out scraped, rough like he’d been dragging them after him on the ground.

Harry carries on unlacing the shoes, answering Liam in his unhurried way. “I’m glad you’re dripping on my floor,” Harry says, one hand pushing his fringe off his face when he looks up, dimple showing in his cheek as he smiles. “I’m glad you’re here, Liam.” He taps on the top of Liam’s right foot. “Lift, please.”

Liam lifts his foot, and as Harry tugs Liam’s trainer off, Liam lets a hand fall on Harry’s shoulder for balance. They get the left one sorted too, and then Harry’s still kneeling there, gazing up as Liam’s looking down, their eyes catching together and holding fast. Liam’s lungs expand with a breath, and then another, and with each breath it gets easier to be here, and the urge to turn and run back out the door gets less and less, until it’s gone entirely. When it’s gone, Liam’s only left struggling instead with the urge to sink his fingers into the warm dark of Harry’s curls, to draw him to his feet so that they can finished what they’d started in Liam’s kitchen, and at the fete, and every other place where they’d met and Liam had been too afraid to admit how much he wants Harry.

Liam’s nearly given in— his fingers are grazing against the skin behind Harry’s ear, reaching, when Lucy interrupts by holding up her fistfuls of dirty towels, revealing Tony and Pepper looking ruffled and long-suffering but also much, much drier.

“All done getting dry,” Lucy sings out loud and brightly. The way she’s lifting her arms shows there’s nearly as much mud streaked onto the front of her jumper— Liam’s jumper, he sees now— as there is on the towels, but it doesn’t seem to lessen her accomplishment. “Can we go play frisbee now?”

“Frisbee’s not for inside the house, runt, you know that,” Harry tells her. Liam’s already pulled his hand away, caught, but Harry’s stayed put— the hand he’d wrapped around Liam’s knee to steady him still there, warming Liam even through the damp material of his trackies.

Lucy diverts her pleading-eyed efforts into a different request. “Can we watch the basketball dog movie?”

“Reckon it’s somebody’s bedtime, actually,” Harry says, in a reasonable approximation of a dad-voice. Lucy moans and complains for a minute, acting like the world is ending, and finally she throws herself down next to Liam’s dogs, clinging to them with both arms. They must have been running for a good while— both are too tired to try and squirm away anymore. They only seem resigned to their fate.

“Can Tony and Pepper come with me to my room?” Lucy says, using her pout to its full effect. “We’ll be so, so quiet, and we’ll go right to sleep, I promise.”

Harry looks back to Liam, silently winging an eyebrow, deferring the decision to him. Harry’s hand squeezes the back of Liam’s knee just slightly, but Liam’s not sure that’s on purpose.

Liam’s teeth catch on his lower lip, his eyes flitting from point to point on Harry’s face, wanting to read it but Liam ends up with only a collage of impressions to go off of: the serious line of Harry’s mouth, the unblinking sea-glass green of his eyes— the way that he seems to be holding his breath for Liam’s answer as much as Lucy is.

Liam nods, and then he clears his throat, saying aloud, “Yes— yeah. They can stay with you till you sleep.” She starts to cheer, and Liam adds, smiling softly: “Have you got a night light, darling? Tony can get a bit scared of the dark.”

“I do! I have a purple ladybird night light,” Lucy says, bounding to her feet, jumping in place with her excitement.

“Alright, goose, go brush your teeth,” Harry tells her, finally standing up. “And get your jammies on. Don’t put jammies on the dogs. Definitely don’t brush their teeth, either.”

After the three of them have vanished past the living room— Liam having to shoo Tony and Pepper after Lucy when they’d wanted to stay with him, confused— Harry looks back at Liam. The fact that they’re at eye-level again is doing strange things to Liam’s chest, making it clench up tight, and it only gets worse the longer Harry holds Liam under his eyes. His gaze has gone thoughtful, even a bit concerned.

“Luce mentioned you had a bit of a bad day at school,” Harry says. His voice is pitched low, sympathetic, meant for just between the two of them. “Want to talk about it?”

Liam shakes his head, resisting the urge to clutch at his own elbows. He can’t remember the last time he was this cold. He’s got the shivering mostly under control, at least.

Harry plucks at the rain-soaked collar of Liam’s t-shirt, pulling it away from the chilled line of his collarbone before letting it sag back into place. “Want a shower?” Harry asks, his tone lilting just a bit differently from before, just enough.

Something that was already fraying inside Liam finally snaps at that; something that had been held together out of desperation comes apart under the weight of Harry’s half-smile from so close— a smile that’s just begging for lips to be tucked up against it— until Liam can’t remember why he’s even here to begin with, and he finds himself saying, “Yeah, alright,” with a mouth that’s only the slightest bit numb.

He follows Harry through the living room, moving on auto-pilot, the soles of his feet drying off on the thick carpet. They go down the hallway, past open doorways to a posh guest bathroom, and a second toilet that’s across from Lucy’s room, where Liam can see how she’s stood on a stool over the sink, seemingly concentrating on dribbling her toothpaste foam out in an unbroken string— Tony’s got his head in the toilet bowl, having a drink— then they’re at the end of the hall and walking into what must be Harry’s room.

It’s a large and comfortable master bedroom, about twice the size of Liam’s at home. He looks around in a bit of a daze, taking everything in as if through a colored filter, like seeing a picture in a frame: there’s a bay window in the far wall that has pillows and books scattered on the bench seat, and a king-sized bed with rumpled sheets taking up the middle of the room that Liam gets lost in staring at for far too long. There’s a creak as Harry shuts the door behind them, though he leaves it open a crack for the sounds of Lucy and the dogs to come through.

Liam keeps following where Harry leads him, and he takes the handful of dry clothes and extra towel that Harry drops into his frozen hands after ending up in the en-suite bathroom, Harry all the while saying things about how to work the shower that Liam can’t quite catch over the hum of white noise in his ears.

After Harry leaves to go check on Lucy, Liam strips off the rest of his rain-drenched clothes, piling them in a heap, and he steps gratefully into the heat of the shower. The scalding temperature makes his skin sting like needles then flush up pink, chasing away any chills that’d been lingering, and Liam ducks his head under the spray, the water running in streams over his face as he bites back a groan at the feel of it. He wonders how well sound carries through the bathroom door; he decides he doesn’t care.

When his fingers start to prune up from the water he leaves it, but he lingers at the mirror for a bit longer, stalling, eyes roaming over the stuff Harry’s got littered around his sink. It’s only what Liam might’ve expected if he’d ever given any thought to it: deodorant and aftershave, hair products, colognes, mouthwash— but the thing that finally gets Liam moving again is the lone toothbrush Harry’s got sitting by itself in its porcelain holder— just a toothbrush, rubber and plastic, but also the last and final nail driven into Liam’s coffin lid.

Liam glances at the pile of clothes Harry’s lent him, but he doesn’t put them on. He knots the towel around his hips and opens the door, still just as damp from the shower as he was from being outside in the rain.

Harry’s there waiting, and this time the bedroom door is fully shut. He’s sprawled flat in the middle of his bed, elbows propped on his stomach as he holds his mobile over his face, idly flicking through it, the ring on his thumb throwing back yellow glints from the lamp that’s on the bedside table.

Without looking over, Harry says, “I bunged your wet things into the dryer— dunno what you want to do with your trainers, though.”

“Harry,” is all that Liam says, but his voice still catches in his throat, giving him away.

Harry looks up, his arms dropping down and his eyes going dark as he takes Liam in. Then Harry sets his phone aside, blindly reaching to place it on the bedside table, but he misses— the phone thuds to the carpet. He doesn’t seem to notice.

Liam looks back at Harry as steadily as he can, and he doesn’t know what he must look like, but eventually Harry swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the movement. He breaks the silence between them, saying carefully and low, “Thought you said this was a bad idea, Liam.”

Liam thinks that it very much is, still— out loud he asks, “Do you want me to go?”

It’s enough to make Harry sit up, scooting forward till his toes are digging into the carpet, the sheets getting even more bunched up under his legs, but he’s holding a hand out like he’s going to actively stop Liam if he takes even a step towards the door. “Don’t go. Don’t you dare go,” Harry says, his head tilting back to look up into Liam’s face. More softly, Harry tells him, “Liam, stay— please,” like he’s talking about more than just this one night. Harry puts the hand he’s reaching out on Liam’s bare damp hip, heating him up faster than the shower had done, like Harry’s fingers are laying brands on him. 

Liam’s throat has closed up, gone too tight to answer back— there’s nothing he can even say to that. Instead he does what he wants desperately to do instead of answer, taking Harry’s face between his hands, bending forward till their mouths meet, until Liam’s kissing him.

They kiss, Harry welcoming it with a low sound and his mouth opening up eager and hot under Liam’s own, and his hand shifts its grip from Liam’s hip to the [edge of the towel](https://24.media.tumblr.com/b442145ab67db411c80e2a27ad6e33db/tumblr_mzj4mkSlB51ql9qomo4_500.png), Harry hooking his fingers into the knot of it, using that to reel him in. Harry pulls, and Liam goes until his knee hitches up on the bed between Harry’s thighs. Then they’re falling, their mouths still clinging together even as Harry’s head bounces against the mattress, Liam bracing his own fall with his hands on either side of Harry’s shoulders.

Harry’s hands go everywhere after that, like he wants to map out the lines of Liam’s body now that he’s been allowed— his fingers slip and skid over the still-wet planes of Liam’s stomach, low to where the towel is barely hanging on to his hips, light stings chasing in the wake of Harry’s nails, and then Liam’s shuddering with the feel of Harry running a hand warm and slick up the curve of Liam’s spine, the metal of Harry’s rings pressing in at the nape of Liam’s neck when Harry grips there and holds. He uses his grip to pull Liam further down, his jaw opening wider to accommodate the hot-wet glide of Harry’s tongue into his mouth, and Liam’s already going dizzy for lack of air, his breaths coming in too shallow and each one running back out immediately, huffed or groaned against Harry’s lips. Harry doesn’t let up an inch, and Liam doesn’t even consider wanting him to.

They kiss until Liam’s skin’s been dried by the sweep of Harry’s hands, and his mouth feels swollen and stung by the press of Harry’s lips and teeth. Then Harry’s slipping his arm sideways, pulling out something from under the pillows that he leaves on the sheets next to them. The distraction has Liam breaking reluctantly from Harry’s mouth, and as he’s catching a quick breath, from the corner of his eye Liam can see the lube and strip of condoms Harry’s got out for them framed against the white of the linens. It’s not as if Liam hadn’t already known— had hoped, at least, and wanted it badly— but seeing the evidence that Harry wants this to happen, too, it punches the air from Liam’s lungs like a fist to the chest, leaving him momentarily stunned.

Harry levers up from the bed just enough to keep pressing kisses to the corner of Liam’s mouth, his jaw, his chin— each drag of Harry’s lips feeling like he’s trying to coax an answer from Liam that he still has yet to say out loud. 

“Yeah?” Harry murmurs against Liam’s ear.

“You—” Liam feels a bit hazy from all the kissing, and it takes a moment for his tongue to remember how to do other things, like make words, and they still come out sounding breathless. “You always keep stuff under your pillow, then?”

“Not always.” Harry reaches up between them, touching Liam’s face, his eyes gone dark under the criminally long sweep of his lashes. “Just when there’s a fit bloke in my shower who I’ve been wanting to get in my bed for ages.” He follows this by leaning up again, slipping a slick open kiss onto Liam’s shocked-slack mouth, breathing into it, “If that’s alright with you, mate.”

Liam swallows, and then he says, breathing it back, “Yeah— yeah, Harry. More than alright.”

They kiss again, hunger and the promise of what comes next fueling the fire in Liam’s belly, and he shifts his weight to allow it when Harry’s hands skate down to finally tug off Liam’s loosened towel, dropping it somewhere on the floor. Then there’s nothing at all anymore between Liam’s skin and his aching cock and Harry except for Harry’s clothes, and as Liam drops down till they’re flush from their thighs to their chests, he can’t help rutting a bit against the hard bulge of Harry’s cock that Liam can feel through his jeans, gasping into Harry’s mouth over it, Liam’s own mouth watering impatiently for the taste of him.

Liam breaks again from all the kissing, not even pausing to admire the view before squirming down on the bed until he’s settled between the open spread of Harry’s legs, his knees and thighs pressing up warm against Liam’s ribcage, folding him in exactly where he wants to be. He ducks his head to drag his lips along the seam where Harry’s cock is straining, hardly able to wait, Harry biting off a groan before he reaches down, groping for Liam’s shoulders and gripping tight when he finds them.

“Liam,” Harry says, the low sound of Liam’s name in his mouth like that almost turning the word into something else entirely. It has Liam squeezing his eyes shut, resting his forehead against Harry’s hip— only briefly, though, just until Liam can be sure of this— be sure that he knows what he’s doing, that he’s going to be able to have this one night and not eat himself away on the memory of it.

When he can, Liam lifts his head again, and he catches Harry’s hand to place it over the back of his neck. Harry’s fingers curl immediately into the short soft hair like he gets it, and Liam looks up at Harry along the line of his body to say, already sounding hoarse, already used: “Was thinking— was thinkin’ I’d like to get you in my mouth, actually. If that’s alright with you.”

Harry’s eyes are sitting on Liam like a weight. Liam’s glad when Harry finally tells him, “More than alright,” agreeing, so that Liam can look away, finally use his mouth like he wants to, taste Harry like he wants to, have him like this. Liam nuzzles into the bare skin on Harry’s stomach that’s showing between his ridden-up top and his jeans, feeling his own humid breath come back to him, hoping in a dazed sort of way that when he bites carefully at Harry’s v-cut and his waistband and his zipper that he knows it means thanks, means all the other things Liam can’t bring himself to say. 

He unzips Harry’s flies, and then makes good on his offer— until Harry’s hand on Liam’s neck and his fingers in Liam’s hair stop holding him down, drawing him off instead, back up Harry’s body so that they can kiss messy and urgent, Harry sucking the heavy taste of himself from Liam’s tongue while Liam kneels over him on his hands and knees, Harry reaching around with slick fingers to start working Liam open until he’s panting too much to even try at kissing anymore, only groaning into Harry’s open mouth while Harry shushes him, swallowing down Liam’s shouts when he presses in another finger, and then a third.

And when Harry rolls Liam onto his back, finally his turn to settle between Liam’s legs like he was made to fit there, it’s easy for Liam to forget that this will be all he can have, all he’s allowed— especially when it’s all Liam can do to cling tight to Harry’s shoulders, bury his face in the sweaty curve of his neck and sob for breath— everything else that’s not the heat and drag of Harry moving inside him falling away like rain, the world itself utterly forgotten.

*

Around five o’clock in the morning Liam gets rattled into wakefulness by the soft patter of the weather starting up again outside. He mashes his face back into the pillow, but even as weighed down with exhaustion as he is it doesn’t work. He feels like he hasn’t quite slept at all, anyway, only dozed— too aware of the fact that he wasn’t alone in the bed, too aware of the fact that it wasn’t Tony or Pepper curled up next to him.

When the room goes from black to gray, pre-dawn light filtering in through the curtains, Liam lifts the duvet and creeps out from underneath it, repressing shivers as he slips naked from the warmth of the bed into the colder air of the room. The only thing he can find from groping around on the carpet is Harry’s pants, so Liam puts them on, and then hesitates before picking up the discarded towel, too, dropping it in the hamper. 

He freezes a bit when Harry shifts on the mattress, but his breathing stays even, so Liam lets his hand turn on the doorknob, opening the door just enough to shuffle through it sideways, grateful when the hinges don’t squeak.

He goes in search of the utility room, rubbing his hands down his chilled bare arms and moving slow, feeling like an intruder as he pokes his head into different rooms to check and mostly finds them as empty as Harry had claimed. He finally locates the washing machine and dryer in a room off from the kitchen, his keys and phone sitting neatly atop the machine like Harry had checked Liam’s pockets before throwing his clothes in. He tries to ignore the guilt gnawing away at his stomach as he puts them on, but it’s impossible to not feel awful when he creeps back down the hallway to Lucy’s room, easing the door open and whistling low for Tony and Pepper, watching them uncurl from the floor at the foot of her bed and come towards him in the lavender glow of her night light.

When they reach the foyer, their nails clicking loudly against the hardwood floors, Liam tells them in a whisper to sit and wait as he crouches down to put on his still-damp trainers.

There’s no noise that gives him away, but as Liam’s shoving his foot in his shoe Tony breaks from his sit, trotting away. Liam looks up to see Harry walking out from the hallway, yawning and scratching his shoulder. He stops when he spots Liam, looking at him, and Liam’s stomach sinks into the ground with the way Harry’s face shutters up, closing carefully in on itself, and Liam knows it’s his fault. There’s a reason he hadn’t wanted to get caught.

“Morning,” he says, because he has to say something.

“Morning,” Harry says back, but almost like he’s reluctant to, his voice hoarse with the residue of sleep. He looks away from Liam, and then back again. When the silence has stretched on for a long, unbearably awkward moment, Harry’s the one to break it, saying, “Luce’s going to be heartbroken when she wakes up.”

Liam tries to hold his gaze, but he can’t take the weight of the accusation in Harry’s eyes, even more-so with the way he looks right now— hair rumpled up from the pillow, dressed in just his jeans riding low on his hips, the flies not even zipped all the way, like Harry’d only thrown them on as an afterthought. It makes it difficult to miss the way Harry’s torso and arms are littered with tattoos, so many more of them than Liam had known about, that he hadn’t really been a frame of mind earlier to stop and admire. Along with all the black ink, too, are the still-pink marks left from Liam’s hands and mouth, evidence of what they’ve done. Seeing them is what makes Liam drop his eyes back to his trainers where he’s still got his foot only halfway in.

“I’ll make it up to her,” Liam mutters, focusing on getting his trainer fully on, tying the laces with stiff and jerky movements.

“What about making it up to me,” Harry says. “I was looking forward to finally getting to feed you breakfast, Liam.” Even if what he’s saying sounds like a joke, there’s a hint of anger in it, the first time Liam can remember hearing Harry sound anything remotely like that. It startles him into glancing up again.

“This isn’t that sort of a thing,” Liam says, still fighting with the guilt that’s trying to claw up the back of his throat like sick, bitter and uncomfortable.

“It isn’t,” Harry says, echoing Liam, rubbing at his bare arm with one hand, speaking like he’s only feeling the words out as he says them, like he hadn’t planned for a conversation like this. “Alright— maybe you can tell me what it is, then, because I reckon I’ve been under the wrong impression.”

Harry’s voice doesn’t raise up, doesn’t get louder, but there’s a strain in it as if he’s holding himself back from it, reining his temper in. Liam is glad for it, almost, because it makes it easier to summon his own anger in response— feeling it heat up fast under his skin, like it had been last night before he’d come here, simmering up to boil like he’d only ever turned down the dial.

He’s angry with Harry for catching him leaving, and for making him explain why when the reasons should be obvious; it makes it easy for Liam to lift his eyebrows at Harry, force his voice flippant as he says, “Mate, it’s better like this. Just easier, isn’t it? You’ve had me, now you can move on to the next, like, whichever Brazilian supermodel’s in the queue; isn’t that how this sort of thing’s meant to work with you people?”

“I don’t know about anyone else. That’s not how it is with me,” Harry says. He’s definitely angry, now.

Liam nearly flinches. He forces it into a shrug instead, his shoulders rounded up and tense as he hunches forward again, reaching for his second trainer and jamming it on. “Well. Sorry,” he says, knowing he doesn’t sound like it. He sounds like a proper knob, actually, but it doesn’t stop him from saying snidely, “Suppose I’ll have to google you a bit harder next time.”

“Liam,” Harry says, frustrated, and then cuts himself off, running a hand over his face, back through his hair as he speaks. “Why are you—” he breathes out heavily, like a sigh. “I don’t know what it is you want me to say to you. I don’t know what more I could possibly say to convince you.”

Liam’s got both his trainers on, and he gets to his feet. The well-used soreness that runs through his body with the movement only makes it easier to keep his face stony, gripping stubbornly and tight to the hot spikes of resentment in his chest. “Why should I have to be convinced?” he says. “We’ve had a bit of fun, right, now we can both move on with our lives. Sorry if I’m not set to fall all over myself because some rockstar fucked me once. I mean— mate, it was good, don’t get me wrong.”

Harry’s jaw works, shifting sideways as Harry fits his tongue against his cheek. It takes a long minute for him to answer. Tony gives up on waiting for Harry to pet him, coming back to stand next to Pepper by the door. They’re both of them too well-behaved to paw at it, but they’re clearly confused as to why Liam’s hovering near the door and not opening it, not letting them out to run and play and go wee. Harry’s eyes flick to the dogs before settling back on Liam’s face.

“So that’s it, then,” Harry says, finally. “That’s all you’re going to say— that’s all of it.”

“That’s all I’ve got, yeah,” Liam says. His lack of sleep is sitting on his head like a weight, extra gravity pressing him down, making him shift his feet, impatient to be gone. He doesn’t want to be here, be doing this. He doesn’t want Harry looking at him like that anymore, like Liam’s the one who’s broken a promise.

Liam looks away. He tugs at the zip of his hoodie, closing it up to his neck.

“It’s still raining. I can drive you back,” Harry offers. He doesn’t sound angry anymore, only sad and resigned.

Disappointment squirms up from Liam’s belly into his throat, nearly puts a lump there, but he swallows it back. Stupid to feel like that, when he’s the one who’s made a mess of this— stupid to expect Harry to keep holding his hand out if Liam’s only going to keep slapping it away. Stupid, it’s just— he’s so, so stupid.

“No, I— you don’t have to,” Liam says, forcing the words out. “I rang a taxi.” It’s not a lie— well it is, a bit. He had been planning on calling a taxi, he just hasn’t got around to it yet.

The thing is, Liam hadn’t expected to still be here when he did it— wanted to be out of the house first, on the steps or the kerb, out in the air where he might finally clear the smell of Harry’s sheets from his nose. He’d wanted to have the chance to escape the memory of having to fake dozing off after they’d finished last night, pretending then that he hadn't felt Harry nudging kisses over Liam’s sweaty face and neck, that he hadn’t heard Harry murmur about how he'd drop Liam and Lucy both off at school in the morning. He’d wanted to at least set aside the phantom feeling of Harry’s arm flopping warm and heavy over his waist sometime in the middle of the night, Harry’s snores light against the hollow between Liam’s shoulders, fitting into the space there like a letter folding into an envelope.

He doesn’t get the chance to do any of that. Harry says, “Alright,” and leaves it there, falling silent. Liam doesn’t wait for him to say anything else, or to keep saying nothing— he opens the door, lets Tony and Pepper go out in front of him, dashing into the rain like they weren’t just drenched in it a handful of hours ago. Liam’s the one to hesitate a beat longer, looking at Harry over his shoulder, biting his tongue on something in his mouth that feels like an apology. He clenches his teeth on it and doesn’t say it. He steps outside, shutting the door behind himself with a soft and final-sounding click.

*

After swimming in the rain and the muck like he had, compromising his immune system, it’s almost inevitable that Liam turns up with a bit of a chill. Schools, and children especially, are always massive petri dishes for germs. Liam tries to keep up a healthy vitamin regimen, stay a step ahead of whatever recent disease is making the rounds, but sometimes it’s just not enough. And after forcing himself to go to work on Tuesday— absolutely dreadful, given everything that had happened and so little sleep besides— fifteen pupils are a handful to deal with even when Liam’s in top form— he’s not entirely surprised when he wakes up on Wednesday morning feeling like his internal organs are leaking out of his face.

He spends a wretched two days off, sick with it, alternately drinking lemsip and chicken broth because it’s the only thing he can keep down, blowing his nose so often that the dogs take to napping in different rooms of the house from him. He spends the time off mostly dozing on the couch, tissues scattered around him like shrapnel in a warzone, or wandering between the kitchen and the living room in a zombie-like haze, afghans draped around his shoulders as he struggles to remember the thing he’s meant to be doing before he realizes he should be at the school, in his classroom.

When he’s coherent enough to think it, it does occur to Liam that this feels a lot like karma giving him his just deserts. But even with that thought nagging at him— guilt seeping in past his raw edges, pushing in where he didn’t think he could get any more miserable— his chest still feels weighed down with dread thinking that Harry’s going to ring him at any moment and Liam will be as awful as he was that morning— that he won’t know what to say to fix things so that they can be like they were before. Or, worse, if Liam even wants things to be like they were before.

It’s a moot point, though. Harry doesn’t ring, or text, or tweet, or send a postcard. None of the above.

The only human interaction Liam gets during both days off are the usual texts from Andy— at least Liam has a real excuse for not going down to London this weekend— and then another from Ruth to remind Liam about their mum’s upcoming birthday. It finally takes Liam jamming his mobile into a kitchen cabinet so that he’ll stop looking at it, stop checking every hour for something that isn’t there. Especially when Liam knows, with a cold dull certainty, that he doesn’t deserve it to be.

*

He’s still a bit poorly when he goes back to work on Thursday, but staying at home was driving Liam mental, the walls of his home suffocating him more than his stuffed-up nose was. The girls are glad to have him back, too, which is always heartening. Substitutes usually mean welcome easy days for students, just holding things together while the regular teacher is out, and Liam does find when he gets in and reads the note that the sub left on his desk that they have loads of lesson plans to catch up on. He’s glad of the extra work, though— dives into it headlong, even, using it as a distraction from thoughts that he’d just as soon not wallow in.

Lucy comes up to Liam during lunch time— where he’ll be on-duty for the rest of his career, presumably— with her eyes very big and concerned.

“Are you still dying anymore, Mr. P?” she asks worriedly. “Are you infected? Did you get a doctor’s note to come back?”

“Bless you, button, I was never dying,” Liam says, pulling out a smile for her, and then has to go and ruin it by sneezing into his handkerchief. He’s already on his second hanky of the day, having soggied up the first. He puts on a brave face, telling her, “Was only a bit under the weather, that’s all.”

“And you’re all better now?” She says, understandably skeptical.

“I’m ninety-nine percent better, swear on my honor,” Liam lies.

Her round little face stays solemn, peering up at him. “Daddy says you don’t want lunches anymore, um, ‘cause he says you’re making your own lunches now. But I didn’t want the orange from my lunch, anyway— do you want it?” She produces a bright tangerine from behind her back, then, cradled in her small palm, her fingers only a bit smudged up with jam and dirt.

Liam takes it gingerly, handling the tangerine like it’s a stick of dynamite and not a harmless piece of fruit. “Cheers, darling,” he tells her, rubbing his thumb over the dimpled skin. To be fair, he’d plain forgot to pack himself a lunch this morning— not yet broke of an expectation he should never have had to begin with.

“Are you going to come sleep over with the puppies again?” Lucy asks. Even though Liam has been bracing himself over the past three days for this exact moment, it still hits like a brick wall falling on top of him.

He crouches down, trousers wrinkling up around his knees so that her dark curly head is level with his own. Her ponytail’s gone askew— unless it was meant to list to side like that— exaggerated even more by the bird-like tilt of her head. He can’t tell if it hurts more wanting to help fix her hair, or that he’s still so endeared that her dad is so terrible at it.

“I don’t think I can manage that, sweetheart,” he says, and blames the lump crawling up his throat on his cold. He swallows it back, forcing cheer into his voice. “But how about being one of my captains in Solar System dodgeball when we play next time— sound good? Think you can handle Team Jupiter for me?”

“Yeah, I can do it!” She agrees, dimple popping out in her cheek from the way she’s switched gears to beaming at him. Liam hates that even such a small reminder makes him feel ready to fall apart, his skin turned to papier mache layered over equally brittle bone. It’s just plain unreasonable, he tells himself for the hundredth time. They hadn’t even ever gone on a proper date. There was nothing there for Liam to be missing like this, like the world’s gone all sideways and wrong.

He sends Lucy back to her mates, most of them howling like they’re in the jungle and crawling over the monkey bars. Liam notes Emmy Cuthbert sitting off on the side of the playset with a glum look on her face, watching the girls, but not joining in as she usually might’ve done; there must be a scolding from her mum still sitting fresh in her mind. Liam’s still been waiting for the other shoe to drop on that one.

Friday at least gets him good news on that front. Liam comes in through the office first thing in the morning rather than heading to his class, checking his box for a curriculum update that the staff had been told to expect. He gets caught trying to slip from the staff room by Dorothy Keynes hovering near the tea and coffee counter; the sweeping upturned frames of her glasses only puts Liam even more in mind of a shark lying in wait for a baby seal.

“You have to tell me how you did it, Payne, you simply must,” Keynes says, the bright beads on her long glasses chain swinging distractingly around her face. “I’ve got Drucilla Cuthbert in my year ones. If you know the secret of making her mother more tractable, have out with it— I’m at my wit’s end with that woman.”

“Er, hang on a minute—” Liam says, confused. “What is it I’m meant to have done with Mrs. Cuthbert?” Keynes response is to look only too pleased for the opportunity to do the thing teachers might love even more than teaching: gossiping.

“Why, the Headmistress’s secretary was telling me all about it—” she says, lowering her voice even though they’re the only two staff in the lounge yet. “That woman called just yesterday, saying she’s changed her mind about the transfer— saying she simply can’t have any other teacher for her precious Emilia other than Mr. Payne. There! What do you make of that?”

Liam shifts the strap of his satchel further up his shoulder, resettling it from where it was slipping. “I’m in the dark on this one, to be honest,” he says, though there’s a niggling suspicion in his mind, growing stronger by the second. “Did she mention anything else?”

“Just that a few of your other parents rang in as well, just before— they all wanted to offer up a recommendation for you, sing your praises. Sweet, isn’t it?” Keynes gives him a sly look over the tops of her glasses. “You didn’t put them up to any of it, of course,” she says, her tone implying that’s exactly what the hens of the Puddington Lake rumor mill are going to be clucking by the end of lunch today.

Liam doesn’t know how he’s so sure, but he is— he’s absolutely positive it’s Harry’s doing, all of it. Mrs. Cuthbert’s change of heart, the parents talking him up to his boss— saving Liam’s arse, basically. Harry must’ve heard the story from Lucy, who’d had it from her best mate Emmy. He must’ve decided to help. As to why— when Harry hasn’t texted so much as a frowny face at Liam since that morning at his house when Liam had walked out— Liam can’t seem to wrap his head around it.

“Well, I did promise loads of A’s to any student who wanted to put in a good word,” Liam jokes, but it’s distractedly, not with any real enthusiasm. His mind’s already racing towards his empty classroom and the privacy of it, his mobile suddenly sitting heavy in the pocket of his coat like a brick. He has go, he ought to— but how can he possibly talk to Harry? Should he thank him, or— what is Liam even meant to say?

He says other things to Mrs. Keynes, excuses about marking homework or the like, he doesn’t quite know, but he finally leaves. He retreats to his classroom, sitting with his hands flat on either side of his open lesson plans. His phone is there, black-screened and silent, staring up expectantly from the face of Liam’s desk. His palms go clammy and warm against the wood, but he doesn’t move them— doesn’t even touch his phone until the early bell goes and he has to shove it in the drawer, has to get up and get on with his work.

Getting on with his life would be better, but Liam isn’t sure if he’s going to be able to manage that one, either.

*

Headmistress Durbsworthy stops by after break-time to confirm the good news in person. Liam sets his pupils on a quick art project and follows her into the hallway to chat. His ears stay half-tuned to the open door of the classroom, ready for any sudden uproar or disaster, but there’s only the usual chatter amongst themselves as the girls get out their art supplies, pastels and markers and crayons, planning their drawings. He hears Alyssa declaring— a bit grandiosely— that she’s going to paint a whole mural, and he tries to hide his wince, hoping the Headmistress might wind up her congratulatory speech a bit more quickly. He doesn’t fancy coming back to a wall full of horses. Alyssa is stuck in one of those phases at the moment.

“You’ve got a dab hand with the parents, Payne, I must say,” The Headmistress is telling him, her white hair bobbing ponderously as she gestures. “Very early in your career, too— most new teachers think they have to take the bull by the horns, you know. Take on the world, all that. Quite thick-skulled, if you ask me. Really, the key to any successful academic career is a dignified, respectful—” and she goes on and on in a similar vein, Liam doing his best to nod and look attentive.

The first opportunity he gets, though, he can’t help from interjecting, “Kind of you to say, Ma’am. But I was wondering— was it only Mrs. Cuthbert you spoke with? Or were there— I’d heard there might’ve been a few others, actually.”

“Oh my, yes, I was getting all sorts of calls. Kept Ms. Mardle busy at the phones for quite some time,” Durbsworthy says, referring to her secretary.

“Was one of them Lucy’s father?” Liam asks, too desperate at this point to care if it’s an odd question. “Styles, I mean. Harry Styles.”

“Styles, was it? That does sound familiar. Styles— yes. Had a sturdy deep voice, that one, didn’t he. Very adamant that you were the best teacher in the academy, that we couldn’t afford to lose you.” She clucks in an indulgent way, a bit like his mum does, patting Liam’s shoulder.

Liam opens his mouth to say something, clicking his teeth back together only when he realizes there’s nothing waiting to come out— he’s speechless.

Raised voices from behind the door save him from having to come up with a response— he makes a hasty apology to the Headmistress, her nodding understandingly like she still remembers being in Liam’s shoes, and he sweeps back into the chaos of his classroom, glad of his escape.

He wades into the fray, sending wandering strays back to their seats, dragging Alyssa away from the white board and the dry-erase markers— she’s already got half the cast of My Little Pony up there, seems like, Liam’s actually a bit impressed— admonishing the girls for having the Friday flibbertigibbets so early in the day. They just giggle at him like they always do when Liam uses the word ‘flibbertigibbet.’

“Alright, alright, enough from you lot,” he tells them, trying to sound stern. He’s pretty sure he fails miserably— he usually does, to be fair. “Let’s put the art things away. It’s time for everyone’s favorite, right? Maths lesson!”

A collective groan rises up from his class like sweet music to Liam’s ears. Maybe he really is a top-notch teacher after all.

*

At the very end of the day, a tug at the hem of Liam’s cardigan has him turning from watching the girls straggle along their messy queue down the hallway, already knowing which head is missing from the line before he sees Lucy. She’s snuck up behind him, her backpack all set to go on her shoulders and her laces half-undone in her trainers. Knowing Luce, it’s a tumble just waiting to happen, so Liam’s already crouching down to help, knotting the purple laces even as he’s asking her, “What’s up, button? Did you forget something in the cloakroom?”

“I drew a picture for you, since you don’t feel so good,” Lucy tells him, and Liam looks up in surprise at the paper she’s holding out in front of his face, bright crayon colors smearing together from so close, his eyes unable to focus. His mouth’s already curling helplessly into a smile, touched, and he plucks it carefully from her fingers, the thin brown art paper feeling like tissue in his hands.

“My lucky day, isn’t this,” he says, teasing her. “The next Frida Kahlo, giving me an early work— I ought to lock this right up, sure to be worth millions someday.”

“Who’s Frida Kahlo?” Lucy asks, but Liam’s looking properly at her drawing now, and his throat is closing up on him, refusing to let him answer for a moment.

His shakes his head, mute, and then he manages, “Nevermind, darling. It’s quite lovely, it’s— brilliant, thank you. You should catch up to the others. Go on.”

She tells him bye and then goes, scurrying down the hallway in her properly-laced trainers, falling in with the rest of her classmates and joining with Mr. Applegate’s class heading out to the front of the school, too. Liam wants to call after her— wants to check and make sure she’s remembered her homework packet, wants to tell her to have a lovely weekend, wants her to turn and smile back at him one more time so that Liam can tell her he feels loads better already, he’s cured of what ails him.

When the hallway’s cleared and empty Liam heads back into the classroom, pacing over to his desk to set the drawing on top of it. His mobile’s in his hands next thing he knows, but Liam doesn’t have any clear idea what to do with it— still just as lost as he’s been all week, still feeling like the water’s rising up past his chin, still floundering. There are words half-forming and tripping over themselves in Liam’s head, clumsy as Lucy’s feet, and he thinks there’s no good reason why he shouldn’t ring Harry and say most of them— or run out to the front kerb, even, where Harry might be pulling up in his ridiculous black Range Rover and unfolding himself out of the driver’s seat just like he’d done on that first day they’d met, swinging his daughter up into a spin to say hello, bright laughter on both their faces— there’s no good reason, none at all, why Liam shouldn’t go right now and join them.

It’s only the bad reasons that are keeping Liam held so still.

*

By the end of the weekend Liam really is doing better, done with being poorly— or at least he feels human enough to take the dogs out for a long walk Sunday morning. He does bundle up for it though, with a thermal under his flannel top, a jumper over that and his trenchcoat besides to keep the wind off, a thick wool scarf wound round all of it. Not the one from Harry, the Burberry one— that’s been in the back of Liam’s sock drawer since the night of the fete, when he’d got home and shoved it in there straight away, wanting to forget the temptation of it, reckoning out of sight was out of mind. It hadn’t quite worked, of course.

Tony and Pepper are happy to stretch their long legs out— Pepper even running ahead with Tony for a bit before settling in at Liam’s side, pacing him steadily like his shadow. It’s a gray chilly morning, mist curling around his ankles as they walk. It hasn’t rained in a few days, so the grass only damp against the soles of his boots instead of squelching with mud. Liam thinks that’s something, at least.

Even if he hasn’t had to empty his nose into a tissue in a while, Liam’s still the first to tucker out. He circles them back once they reach the Robinson’s pond and Tony’s had his chance to bark at the ducks; the ducks don’t appear to have missed him much. When he and the dogs get back home Liam makes a beeline for the kettle in the kitchen, peeling off layers of clothing as he goes.

His mobile rings from the pocket of his trenchcoat just as he’s hanging it up— too loud against the quiet Liam’s been wrapped in all weekend, jarring Liam like the far-off blast from a fog horn. But there’s absolutely no reason for Liam’s heart to have stopped beating like that, or have dropped down into his gut— it’s only his mum, ringing him same as she does every Sunday.

Liam half-groans to himself, thinking about avoiding her, letting it ring out. He feels guilty enough in the next minute that he does answer, trying not to let his reluctance to talk to any other living person at the moment show too much in his voice, trying to being cheerful.

“Hey there, birthday lady,” he says. “What’re you turning this year, remind me again— twenty-nine? Thirty?”

 _“Cheeky boy,”_ Liam’s mum tuts, sounding pleased.

They chat about the usual things: Liam’s work, Liam’s sisters, family gossip about his cousins getting up to outrageous things, though no one seems to quite know what the outrageous things might be. It’s a bit of a recycled conversation, but it turns out it’s nice to hear her voice all the same. He does a lot of hmm-ing noises on his end of it, mostly just letting his mum’s voice wash over him like the weak winter sunlight that’s filtering in through the window, barely reaching up to Liam’s legs where he’s sat sideways at his small kitchen table, his phone pressed to his ear like it’ll help him to hear her better.

When it’s his turn to contribute more to the conversation, Liam asks: “Mum, what do you want for your b-day pressie, you never said. Diamond Tiffany necklace, is it? A new Maserati?”

 _“Now, Liam, what could a mother possibly want when she’s got three beautiful, healthy children as I have,”_ she says, and then adds, _“I suppose a few grandbabies might set me up well enough. But I don’t want to be greedy.”_ Liam laughs, though he’s still rolling his eyes a bit; that’s what she always answers.

“Yeah, well. I’m working on it,” he says, fingers picking at the edge of the table where the ancient laminate is curling.

 _“I know, honey, I know you are,”_ she tells him, gently enough that Liam has to look up at the ceiling for a second before the sudden strange sting behind his eyes goes away, swallowing down the tightness of his throat.

 _“It’s not easy for anyone, is it,”_ she goes on, a change in her tone making Liam pull his shoulders a bit straighter, listening. _“Dad and I were watching Jonathan Ross the other night, just before bed— you’ve seen his show, haven’t you? Always has all these actors and people on for guests.”_

Liam has to make a noise of assent before she’ll continue, but he already has a sinking feeling of what’s coming, even before she says, _“And there was this one we were watching— musician, handsome fellow, almost as handsome as you, Liam— talking about being a family man and trying to find love with all the pressures of being famous, paparazzi and the twitter, all that. It’s absolutely dreadful.”_ She tuts a bit. _“He did put on such a brave face about it. And he seemed so sincere, like such a nice young man— can’t believe the papers are always calling him a gadabout. Poor lamb.”_

Liam doesn’t ask the name of the handsome gadabout musician— it’s more than obvious he already knows who it is. Liam’s long since left off fussing with the table in favor leaning forward and rubbing his hand over his face, fingers spreading between his eyebrows, along the bridge of his nose. He sighs heavily. “Mum, you. You’ve been talking to Andy?”

 _“He rang me to wish me happy birthday, of course,”_ she says, then hedges around when Liam tries to get more from her, and then inevitably she gets a bit weepy— that’s Liam’s mum, bless her— and tells him she only wants him to be happy, honestly she’s not a bit worried, she’s fine. Liam knows she’s definitely worried— she’s the one he inherited the trait from, after all.

It puts Liam in mind of Harry’s mum. He knows Anne’s always been there for her granddaughter, whether Harry’s been at home or had to be away, helping to raise her, and it’s not just Anne having her son’s back. There’s also Harry’s sister, and all his mates— Lucy’s got far more than just the one aunt and three honorary uncles. It’s an incredible support system for a single parent to have; Harry’s had much more luck than some.

Liam’s chest is clenched up tight, though, aching to think Harry might’ve been wishing all this time to just be a tiny bit luckier.

He spends the next few minutes soothing and reassuring his own mum— telling her it’ll all come right in the end, just wait and see— and if it feels as if he’s convincing himself at the same time, well. Clearly he’s been needing it.

 _“Alright. I love you,”_ she tells him, just before they go to ring off. _“And you’ll be here for Christmas, won’t you?”_

“‘Course, mum. I’ll be there with bells on,” he says, to hear her chuckle more time, and then they say their goodbyes, and Liam stays sitting at the table for a good while after— long enough to have Pepper wandering in from the living room once or twice to check and see if he’s decided to put down food while she’s been absent, going away again when she sees he hasn’t— but Liam’s hardly paying attention. He’s too distracted, stuck with these pictures in his head that won’t leave him now that they’ve squirmed their way in past the chinks in Liam’s armor, ones his mum’s inadvertently pried open.

He just imagines what it might be like, is all: heading to Wolverhampton for the hols just the same as he does every year, only this time turning up at his parents’ doorstep with Lucy in his arms. There might even be snow fluttering around them as the door swings open, Lucy snug from the cold in her puffy anorak and her red and green earmuffs, Liam’s mum bursting into tears nearly as soon as she’s opened the door, making her kisses hello that much more wet against Lucy and Liam’s cheeks, ushering them inside. And Liam’s dad might go to help Harry tug the rest of their bags from the Range Rover, Harry finally trailing in after everyone else with thick white snowflakes dusted over his beanie and the shoulders of his coat, grinning wide enough his face must be hurting, like just being here is the best present Liam could’ve ever offered. And if that were the case, then Liam might lean in to help him brush off the snow after Liam’s passed Lucy on for his sisters to coo over, might press his warm mouth up against the chilled skin of Harry’s neck only briefly, only a promise for later, for when it’s the two of them alone up in Liam’s old bedroom, crammed together on his tiny bed, Harry taking the mickey out of the bunny rabbit curtains no one's ever bothered changing in the middle of trying to sneak his hands up the the back of Liam’s jumper.

It’s maddening, every second of it. It’s a fantasy, and Liam tells himself it’s impossible, even if he might want it so badly he can barely breathe. But something different is happening, too— as the sun climbs higher up his legs, moving across the cracked lino, the nagging nay-saying voice that’s been perched like a gargoyle in the back of Liam’s head all this time is getting fainter, weaker by the minute— getting shouted down by the all the parts of Liam straining to say yes, dammit, and bugger what’s impossible. Because how are they to know what’s impossible, right, if they don’t even make the attempt? He’s never let himself be daunted by things that are hard before; Liam’s never been that sort. 

Liam stands up from the chair, moving back to where he’d hung up his coat, however long ago that was. And as he shrugs it on, it’s almost shameful for Liam to think about how he might have gone on holding still indefinitely, for ages, feeling like the risk of failure was a good enough reason to keep his hands clenched into fists at his sides, and his teeth knit into his lip, never reaching or asking for what he wants.

Liam honestly does know how to try. He can’t ever not try, is the thing.

*

Liam’s outside, ready to get on his bicycle and head off when he sees Mr. Carmichael’s puttering about in his front lawn, fussing with and pruning his prize-winning rose bushes. Must be cutting them back to protect from the oncoming frost, something like that— Liam’s heard earfuls about it on plenty of occasions. He’s always claiming the secret of his green thumb is singing to them. He’s a lovely fellow— bit odd, of course. But they are very lovely roses. Liam might’ve sung to them a few times himself.

Making up his mind, Liam steers his bike over to the low fence separating their yards, calling hello. They exchange a bit of small talk about the weather, and then Liam ventures to ask his neighbor if he wouldn’t mind checking in on Tony and Pepper later tonight, seeing as there’s a chance Liam won’t be home till quite late.

It’s a very small chance. But it’s best to be prepared, isn’t it?

“Oh ho. Have big plans for the evening, do ‘ye?” Mr. Carmichael says, tipping back the floppy brim of his gardening hat. Liam almost pulls a face to himself over how easily he can picture Harry in something just like it— maybe on a summer’s day, maybe someday in the future— maybe puttering round the hedges with some shears while Liam and Luce toss a frisbee for the dogs, maybe Liam popping inside to the kitchen to fetch lemonades only once they’ve all worn themselves out, delivering the glass with a flick to the brim of Harry’s ridiculous farmer’s hat and a laughing kiss to his mouth.

“I’m not sure if I’ve got anything yet,” Liam says. 

Mr. Carmichael taps the side of nose with his pruners, winking. “Say no more, laddie. I’ve just the thing for that. Just you wait, half a moment only.” He moves away towards the gate to the back garden, where Liam knows he’s got his hothouse squirreled away from the spying eyes of his competitors in the village. 

Liam waits as he’s been told, and a few minutes later he’s rewarded by Mr. Carmichael returning to plop half a dozen gorgeous late-blooming red roses into Liam’s hands, thorns stripped and all, saying in his thick brogue, “There. If these winter beauts don’t win the day for ye, nothing will, m’afraid.”

Liam thanks the man profusely. He solves the problem of how to carry the flowers while riding his bicycle by tucking them carefully inside his coat, their perfume blown back heady and sweet into his face by the wind as he pushes off down the street. It feels like a good omen.

He pedals at speed, half-standing sometimes in his haste, barreling down the middle of the lanes when there aren’t any cars to crowd him out, and the village rushes by quickly— much more quickly, it feels like, than the time Liam’d brought Lucy home from school this way; certainly it’s quicker than when Liam’d gone running in the rain the whole distance— just a week passed since then, but also ages and ages, too.

Anyway, it seems like hardly any time at all before Liam’s reached where he wanted to go. He springs off before the bike’s even fully stopped, daredevil for a second like he’d been back in sixth form, teenage and reckless. The bicycle clatters to the grass with the wheels still spinning, but Liam doesn’t see it, he’s already making his way through the gate in the privet hedge, up the stoned path to the steps, until he’s stood finally in front of the door to this big house— but not the biggest— Harry’s house, with all the empty rooms, and the little family of two who can’t quite fill it up all on their own.

Liam rings the doorbell. He hears a muffled “I'll get it!” from inside— Lucy’s voice— and then she’s answering the door, swinging it open and beaming as soon as she sees it’s him.

“Mr. P, you’re at my house again,” she says, astonished. Then she confides, “I’m not supposed to open the door for strangers, but you’re not a stranger, so that’s good.”

Liam’s face can hardly contain his smile, curling up wide into his cheeks just from looking at her. Even without the yellow tights and the red boots and the costume fairy wings, she’d still be a sight for sore eyes.

“Hello, button,” he tells her, stooping down and reaching inside his coat. “I’ve brought you something, here—” he says, and gives her Mr. Carmichael’s roses. A couple of the blooms are a bit squashed, but most seemed to have survived the trip remarkably well. Anyway, it’s only made their fragrance that much stronger.

“Ooh, these smell like one of daddy’s candles,” she says, mashing her face into them straight away. Liam laughs, and when she emerges again, scrubbing the back of her hand over her nose, she asks, “D’you wanna play princess fairy forest with me?”

“I would absolutely love to, sweetheart,” he says. “I only have to speak with your dad for a bit first.”

“Oh. I dunno where he is,” she says, and turns and scans the living room, what’s visible of the kitchen, shrugging when Harry’s nowhere to be seen in the immediate vicinity. “Maybe he’s doing grown-up playtime in the basement?”

Liam’s saved from having to suggest a scavenger hunt for her father when the sound of a door comes from somewhere back near the kitchen, and then there’s Harry’s voice calling, “Luce, was that the doorbell just now?” a second before he walks into view. He stops walking when he spots Liam.

“Look, daddy,” Lucy pipes up, “Mr. P is here!”

“I can see that, runt,” Harry says.

Liam doesn’t move from the doorway, even with as much as he’d like to cross the room and take Harry’s face between his hands, try to kiss that shuttered uncertain look off of it. Except Liam doesn’t quite think he’s earned that, not yet. Barring kissing, Liam supposes he’ll have to settle for using his words.

“I’m sorry,” Liam says, needing that out there before anything else. “I’m sorry for being a—” he glances down to Lucy, altering the word he was going to use, “—a numpty. I just— can I come in?”

Harry hesitates, lifting a tattooed arm to rake his hand through his hair, glancing around before his eyes fall back on Liam like they’re drawn there. “The door has always been open, mate. You ought to know that.” His voice sounds tired, like Liam remembers from the last time he’d heard it— when they’d both been stood in very nearly the same places they are now, facing each other like this— but not as wary as Liam’d half-expected, either. His heartbeats pick up their pace, chasing themselves against Liam’s sternum, elevated with a sudden fresh surge of hope.

He steps inside the foyer just as Harry’s three bandmates come clomping up the basement stairs, following after Harry and yelling about snack breaks, or beer breaks, it’s hard to tell with Louis and Niall shouting overtop of one another. Zayn’s the first of them to see Liam and he pauses, but the other two are too distracted to take notice in time and end up smacking into Zayn’s back and each other.

“Mr. P is here,” Lucy announces again, louder than everyone else, while they’re in the midst of sorting themselves out. Liam barely holds back from giving an awkward wave when all five sets of eyes in the room focus solely on him.

“Payno!” Niall shouts, grin starting up easy and instant, but gets held back from moving in for a fist-bump by Louis’s hand snagging in the nylon leg of his joggers; Niall’s not wearing a top. “Wha—?” he turns on Louis, then sees something in his raised eyebrows and wincing mouth that makes him say— not quite in a stage whisper— “Ah, right, we still miffed at him? I lost track.” 

Liam supposes he deserves that.

“Er— what’s that? I don’t— have you been at the shoe polish again, Neil,” Louis says. He looks between Harry and Liam, wincing again. It does at least seem a bit sympathetic towards Liam, like Louis gets it.

“Think I might go grab a bite to eat, actually. Hungrier than I thought,” Zayn says, stepping in to salvage the situation, bless him. 

Niall and Louis follow his lead, seeming grateful for it, arguing too-fast and too-loud over the choice of Pizza Express or Nando’s or Subway. They leave it to Lucy to pick— Nando’s, couldn’t be anything else after Niall’s blatant steering, leaning down to plead with her, “Nando’s, c’mon Luce, who’s my best girl, that’s it, Nandoooo’s—” Then the next few minutes are a hurried affair of finding Niall’s lost t-shirt, getting Lucy out of her fairy wings and into her jacket, turning over couch cushions to dig up Louis’s car keys.

Harry stays mostly quiet through it all, his eyes on Liam and expression thoughtful when Liam keeps holding his gazes, not breaking them— but he does check in with Lucy to tell her to be good and behave herself for her uncles. She doesn’t seem overly concerned that her dad’s not coming along to lunch with them— and when she insists on bringing Liam’s roses with her, refusing to stick them in a vase, nobody really tries to fight her about it after an aborted token attempt.

“Roses at Nando’s,” Niall even says, laughing as Louis ushers them towards to door. “Hundred-percent they won’t’ve ever been classed up like this before. Great stuff.”

They take all the noise and fuss with them when they go; Liam’s almost a bit sorry for it. The silence that falls between him and Harry once they’re left alone sits heavily on Liam’s chest, heavier now that Liam has to face it, can’t run from it any longer.

He’s gathering his nerve to speak into the silence when Harry does it for him, saying, “He never does recording with his kit on. Niall, I mean.” He gestures with his chin towards the door where they’ve all just left, presumably after Niall. “We weren’t doing any weird, like. Sex dungeon stuff.”

“Mate,” Liam says. “You rockstars get more boring the more I hear of you.” It’s a weak joke, as far as jokes go, but Harry’s at least cracking a smile now. It’s all the encouragement Liam needs to go forward with the rest of what he has to say.

“I’m sorry I was a dick,” Liam says. With the important part done, he finds himself groping next for how to explain himself, wanting to say it properly, say it right. “Mate, I’ve been shit, and you’ve been so— you’ve been charming, all this time? Really charming, right from the start, and just, like. It was hard to make myself believe, I suppose, that you might really— that you’d want to— and with someone like me, like—” Liam throws his hands up, frustrated and helpless, not feeling like he’s getting anywhere. But Harry’s still looking at him patiently, eyes dark and focused, waiting like he’s done all along.

Liam keeps trying, maybe a bit more desperate-sounding than before when he says, “My life is so different from yours, yeah? I work. I run. I hang out with my dogs. I weed my garden. That’s all. That’s— and then you, Harry— I mean.” An impatient noise slips from his throat. “You are a bloody rockstar, for Christ’s sake.”

“That’s just a word, though,” Harry says, voice low, looking down and pushing the hair out of his face. “It doesn’t really mean anything, you know? Don’t think we’re really very different, you and I.” When he looks up from his boots again, Harry’s eyes light onto Liam’s face unerringly, like there was no way they ever could have missed. “Not in the things that really count, like. The proper important stuff. I reckon we’re pretty similar.”

The air feels trapped in Liam’s lungs, waiting what feels like years for him to exhale, to let it go. And when he does, finally, Liam tells him, “I know— reckon I get that now. Like I said, just took a bit of time for me to believe it.”

Harry’s head tilts like he’s surprised— as if that wasn’t what he’d been expecting to hear. He says, “It's not so hard, Liam. It doesn't have to be. Not for us.” His tone is persuasive, hopeful— wanting to convince Liam. Thinking maybe he’s got a chance at it now.

It’s a massive chance, to be fair. But even with that, Liam still chews on his lip, glued to his uncertainty. “Even if you’re a—” he tries, but stops short. He doesn’t say rockstar again, or famous person, or celebrity. Harry probably likes those words even less. Liam goes at it from the other angle. “Even if I’m only a—”

“Popcorn war champion,” Harry interrupts. 

There must be a look on Liam’s face that’s giving him away— just the same as always— because Harry keeps going, grinning broader with every one, describing Liam on his behalf. “Solar dodgeball captain,” Harry says. “Secret underground gangster. Lucy’s favorite teacher.” He’s been walking as he speaks, moving closer to Liam until they’re within arm’s reach. It’s still not close enough for Liam’s liking, especially when Harry says that last bit.

Liam’s starting to smile, too. Or maybe he has been for a long while already, it’s hard to tell. Harry has that effect on him. “I'm her only teacher,” he says.

“How about my favorite teacher?” Harry tries. His dimple’s screwed firmly into his cheek, stuck there like a thumbprint.

“I'm not your anything, Harry,” Liam says. Even as he says it, though, the words have the ring of a lie. Harry seems unphased; seems more certain of himself than ever, actually. Liam would whack him if he didn’t also love him for it.

Harry takes another step nearer, his voice pitching lower with it, like the close distance is only meant for a murmur, for voices that would never reach beyond the two of them— but Liam can still see Harry’s whole face, and the ink-black of his eyelashes, and the curl of his hair, and the cupid’s bow shape of his mouth. If Liam closed his eyes, he could still see every part of that face. Harry says, “I'd like you to be a lot of my things, if that's alright.”

Liam takes in a breath, as deep of one as he can manage. He reaches into his pocket to retrieve his wallet, pulling out a folded paper from inside. “Maybe you ought to tell me what you make of this, first,” he tells Harry, handing the paper over.

Lucy’s drawing has gone a bit fragile in the past couple days— the art paper is the cheap kind, recycled and brown-tinged, mostly just good for kids to scribble on, but Liam’s been handling it like something precious. Even with that, all the folding-and-unfolding he’s done have left deep creases along the page— places where it would be much too easy for it to fall apart.

It’s a crayon drawing, nothing elaborate, just stick figures in rainbow colors: cloud-shaped green trees, pink flowers with five petals each, a yellow sun sat in the corner with rays coming down like beetle legs. She’s put in two dogs— Tony and Pepper, of course, easy to tell by the stilt-like legs and big ears. She’s got three people, too— Lucy and her dad, with matching curlicue hair on the tops of their heads. And Liam. It’s him for sure, because she’s even labeled it ‘Mr. P’ right there in blue; [there’s no mistaking it](https://24.media.tumblr.com/31334de36b83417cc85644cbbdf7b3b6/tumblr_mzj4mkSlB51ql9qomo5_1280.png) for being anyone else.

Harry studies it for a moment, his grin falling away into an expression that’s a bit more solemn. “This looks in order to me,” he says, nodding and serious— just like that— like he doesn’t know the hours Liam spent pouring over the drawing, agonized; doesn’t know how he’d imagined sticking it up on his refrigerator, next to his pictures of Andy and the dogs and his family; how Liam had thought of what it might be like to have that right.

Liam lifts his eyebrows. “Mate, it looks like she's really on to something here, if I'm honest with you.”

Harry’s response is to raise his eyebrows right back. “She’s a smart kid.”

“Well,” Liam says, making a decision and reaching out, curling his fingers into the unbuttoned edge of Harry’s flannel top— if he’s going to just leave it half-undone like that, halfway to his navel, he can hardly complain if some people want to treat it like an invitation— “She does have a good teacher.”

Liam’s grip on Harry’s top makes for great leverage; it’s much easier than he might’ve thought to pull Harry in, get his grinning mouth right against Liam’s own, exactly where Liam wants it to be.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> coda or epilogue or whatever you wanna call it. :)

What catches Liam’s attention is Pepper lifting her head from his lap and perking her ears up, and a few moments later there’s the crunch of gravel in the drive as a car pulls up outside. Liam mutes the telly, glancing at the clock over the mantle. It’s half-nine, which— in a country village like this that closes down around five— is more than a bit late for visitors.

Pepper doesn’t do her friendly-stranger bark, though, or even her mean-stranger bark. Instead she hops down off the couch, tail wagging as she pads into the hallway, and a second later Liam hears the click of the front door and the low pleasant murmur of Harry’s voice as he greets her, then raising up to call out: “Liam? Luce?”

“Shh,” Liam tells him, glancing to where Lucy’s been passed out for the last hour or so, curled up with Tony on the giant dog bed in the middle of the living room.

Harry pokes his head around the corner, frowning, body moving in awkward hops as he pulls off his boots. Pepper dances around his legs a bit more, getting in the way, then returns to her spot next to Liam to settle back in. Liam points out Lucy sleeping, for Harry’s sake, then lets his hand rest between Pepper’s warm and fluffy ears.

“Sorry,” Harry says, voice considerably lower, shucking his wet coat off as he moves into the living room, leaving it to hang damply over the back of one of Liam’s grandmother’s armchairs. Liam doesn’t protest—Tony’s already half-destroyed the thing with his chewing, anyway, stuffing popping out of almost every cushion seam. “The runt’s already asleep?” Harry asks.

“Some of us keep the rule of bedtime around here,” Liam says, though he might be taking more credit than he deserves given how Lucy’d fallen asleep on her own tonight; god knows he’s as helpless against Lucy’s big dewy eyes as her father is when she pouts and asks for, ‘Just five more minutes, pretty pleeease?’

“Sure you do,” Harry says knowingly. He walks closer, bending over the couch, and Liam lifts his chin in anticipation, meeting Harry when he leans down to smack a kiss hello on Liam’s mouth, tasting of the cold night air and the rain.

“She nodded off during the auditions— not a big fan of this season’s talent,” Liam says, smiling up at Harry, because Harry isn’t supposed to be back from London till tomorrow morning. There could be several reasons why he’s early, but Liam has a feeling he already knows— especially when Harry moves back in for another kiss, one that lingers longer, his mouth heating up against Liam’s own and sparking warmth in Liam’s belly.

“She’ll be sad she missed you coming home,” Liam tells him once Harry finally lets him up for air.

“I’ll get the peanut into bed,” Harry says, and goes over to gather Lucy up from the tangle of Tony’s furry gangly legs. Tony grunts and rolls over, annoyed at being disturbed, but Lucy only wakes up enough to wrap sleepy arms around Harry’s neck, tucking her curly head up under his chin. The warmth in Liam’s stomach moves up into his chest, wrapping tight around his heart as he watches them disappear into the hallway.

The patter of the rain outside fills the quiet in the room after they've gone, a momentary hush that Liam used to hear all the time, that used to swallow his life like a blanket. Now, his evenings have been filled with a great deal more noise: laughing shrieks from Lucy playing with the dogs, or singing to herself; Harry’s bandmates banging through Liam’s door at all hours uninvited, raiding his fridge, watching his small telly like they don’t each have four flatscreens of their own.

When Harry comes back he’s stretching and yawning, saying, “Ugh, traffic was horrendous out of the city, with the rain and everything. This old lady in a mini almost ran me down on the motorway.” He moves to stand in front of the couch, a look of consternation on his face. It’s not a very large sofa— with Liam and Pepper sprawled out, there’s not much space left over.

“Yeah, about that,” Liam says, “thought you said the meetings with the label were running late, that you were gonna stay in town for the night?”

Harry shrugs, then solves his problem by bending over and hefting Pepper into his arms, same as he’d done to Lucy. Pepper, though, is not at all a fan of being picked up. She whinges about it, wiggling in Harry’s hold and looking to Liam for help.

Liam laughs, holding up his hands. “I’m not getting in the middle of this,” he tells her. 

Harry lets her down and she slinks away through the hall, tail flagging haughtily behind her; she’ll probably go sleep in the bedroom until Harry and Liam kick her out of there, too. Liam does feel a bit sorry— she hadn’t had to compete with anyone but Tony for furniture space before Harry and Lucy came into their lives. He’s not sorry enough to wish any of it back, obviously.

Harry drops into her now-empty spot with a contented sound, half-draped in Liam’s lap, legs and feet poking off the opposite arm of the couch. “Might’ve bunked out of the last couple meetings,” Harry says, moving his head to a more comfortable spot on Liam’s thigh.

“You might’ve done, huh?” Liam teases, and resists petting Harry’s curls the same as he’d been doing to Pepper’s ears. The wet from the rain is already starting to seep through Liam’s pyjama bottoms, and Harry rolls his damp head to an angle where he can grin up into Liam’s face.

“Might’ve felt like seeing my babies before I sleep,” Harry says, shrugging again.

“Hazza,” Liam groans. “Do you have to call us that, always? I feel like you’re gonna— I don’t know— dress me in a nappy, feed me milk or something.”

Harry levers himself up onto his elbows. “You feel that, do you?” he says, then shifts around, moving until he’s sitting in Liam’s lap, knees spread on either side of his legs. Harry’s lips quirk up, dimple flashing in his cheek, and he croons, “Would you like that, baby? You want daddy to take care of you?”

Liam laughs helplessly, smoothing his hands up Harry’s thighs, feeling the chill and the damp still clinging to them, but they’re warming up fast. “Don’t you even start. That was absolutely not an invitation.”

“Hey, this is your freaky sex fantasy,” Harry says, the low rumble of his voice sounding amused, pleased to have gotten a rise out of Liam. “I’m just trying to be helpful.”

“You’re useless. Might as well bugger off back to London.”

“Oh, I should?”

“Definitely.”

“Definitely, huh,” Harry says, like he’s considering, then he goes in for a kiss, catching only the corner of Liam’s mouth. “Even if I tell you that I missed you?” His lips drag along Liam’s jaw, grazing over his stubble, slow as his voice when it ends up in Liam’s ear. “Even if I said I couldn’t bear the thought of sleeping in a king-sized hotel bed instead of your tiny lumpy one, Liam?”

Liam’s breath catches, trapped in his throat for a second before he lets it out, proud of how steady he sounds as he says, “You’re still in a strop because I wouldn’t let you buy that memory-foam mattress for me, aren’t you? This is just a ploy— I’m onto your tricks, Styles.”

“You’re onto nothing,” Harry says, leaning back, a move which incidentally presses his hips up against Liam’s own. “I’ve moved on. Got a whole new ploy, now.”

“You want to let me in on it?” Liam slides lower on the couch cushion, legs spreading to accommodate Harry a bit better, shifting his grip to the swell of Harry’s arse. Harry moves with him, hands flattening over Liam’s stomach for balance, palms hot through the thin cotton of his t-shirt.

“I reckon the trick now,” Harry says, voice dropping an octave lower, hands moving under the hem of Liam’s top, reaching for skin. “Is to fuck you so hard your old mattress breaks, actually.”

“I dunno. It’s a— it’s a fairly sturdy bed, Haz,” Liam says, distracted, eyes falling to where Harry’s long fingers are dipping past the elastic of Liam’s pyjama bottoms, stretching it teasingly, the light from the table lamps catching the silver of Harry's rings. Liam’s memorized the way each of them feels pressed against his neck and spine by now, felt them there a hundred times before, hasn’t stopped wanting them back on him, constantly.

Harry leans in, breath humid against Liam’s cheek, scent of mint gum and Harry’s aftershave sitting in his mouth. Harry’s hips rock into Liam’s more purposefully, the denim seam of his jeans pressing tight to Liam’s crotch, blood rushing there in interest and filling Liam’s dick, thickening it against that hard line. “Then maybe I’ll break you first,” Harry says, like a promise.

Liam has to swallow before he can speak, mouth dried out from the way he’s breathing through it. “I’m fairly sturdy, too,” he says, sucking in another breath when Harry’s hand slips into the non-existent space between them, palming Liam’s groin through the worn cotton.

“Should we find out for sure, Liam?” Harry asks, teasing again. “Should we see if I can fuck you so hard you forget the alphabet?”

Liam’s biting his lip hard enough to sting, now, but he lets it loose with a gasp as Harry moves his hand, fingers curling around the shape of Liam’s dick. “That’s a lot of fucking,” he manages, breathless now, too far gone to hide it. “Teach that every day, you know.”

“I do know,” Harry says, voice coming out rougher, same as a whole night spent singing on a stage, except this is just from Liam, from the heat they’re building up. Harry rocks his hips forward again, pressing his own palm heavier against Liam. “Might have to ask you to recite it for me as we go. Just to be sure.”

Liam muffles his low groan against Harry’s mouth, skin feeling lit up, rushing hot with the idea of that: being made to keep time while Harry thrusts into him, forcing each successive letter out on a gasp or a shout— though Liam’s got much better than before about being quiet; they have to be, after all, with a bat-eared five year-old down the hallway— and he says, “Christ, Harry,” breaking away from the kiss, knocking his forehead against Harry’s neck. Harry’s hand is moving up and down on him now, rubbing with enough pressure to drive Liam slowly mad without actually getting him anywhere.

“What was that?” Harry’s hand stills, and Liam digs his fingers in, hard enough to make Harry hiss a bit.

“I said it’s bedtime, Harry,” Liam tells him, tilting his head back, taking in the way Harry’s eyes have gone heavy-lidded and dark. Liam gets his feet under himself, standing up from the couch with a heave of his arms and legs, using his grip on Harry’s arse to lift him up, too. Harry’s mouth falls down onto Liam’s like gravity, and Liam sets Harry standing while they kiss and move towards the hallway and the bedroom, knowing from experience that crashing together into the thin walls of Liam’s house isn’t the best way to keep the noise down— they’d rattled down the family portraits last time they’d tried.

But Liam loves the way they kiss, still— tongues pressing hungry and slick, Harry sucking Liam’s lower lip between his own until it’s swollen and stinging, their hands roaming under clothes like they can’t get enough of each other’s skin— like it’s only been days since their first night together instead of months and months. The hunger doesn’t even get dampened when halfway down the hall Liam steps on a Dora the Explorer doll with his bare foot, swearing quietly and then laughing into Harry’s mouth as they fall through the doorway to Liam’s room. Really though, it’s their room now, is the truth of it, since Harry’s got a beautiful massive home that he barely even visits anymore, and piles of his weird band shirts and ripped plaid vests are taking up all the space in Liam’s drawers, and Lucy’s toys are filling up the entire wardrobe in the guest room— the room where she always sleeps, where Tony’ll move to sleep, too, when he notices everyone’s gone from the living room— Liam can’t say he minds any of it too terribly much.

A few feet from the door, they tumble down onto Liam’s lumpy old mattress in a heap of limbs and a creak of the springs, still laughing a bit breathlessly. Pepper gets jostled out of her doze at the foot of the bed, her russet-red head lifting off her paws to glare at them with resentment.

“Sorry, big girl,” Liam tells her apologetically while Harry rolls on top of him, starting to kiss in a damp hot line down Liam’s neck.

She gets down off the bed, resigned, padding back towards the living room. This is far from the first time it’s happened, and surely won’t be the last.

“Reckon Pepper would’ve preferred we’d never met,” Liam says, huffing a laugh against Harry’s curls. They’ve dried into a mess, flopping around worse than usual. Liam gives into the urge to sink his fingers into them, scratching his nails over Harry’s scalp in the way Liam knows he likes best.

“Pepper loves me,” Harry says, pulling at the loose collar of Liam’s shirt to get at the curve of his shoulder.

“Pepper loves Lucy,” Liam corrects him, humming, breath hitching when he feels the scrape of Harry’s teeth replacing the humid warmth of his mouth. “You she just tolerates, I’m afraid.”

“Lot like her owner, huh?” Harry chuckles, the sound of his voice muffled against Liam’s skin, the feeling of his laughter moving through Liam’s chest where they’re pressed together.

“Pretty much,” Liam agrees, grinning above Harry’s head. Liam’s hands fall back down to the quilt when Harry levers himself up, looking down at Liam. Liam gazes back up, already knowing the helpless curl of his kiss-stung mouth is giving him away just as plain as a picture book— saying everything Liam hasn’t said yet about Harry coming back early, about what it does to him to have Harry home like this; what it does to him to have Harry.

“S’pose I’ll just have to work harder then,” Harry says in a murmur, lowering himself back down along the line of Liam’s body, fitting just so between the warm cradle of his thighs. Liam reaches up to help pull him in, hands curled tight into Harry's top. It’s still a bit rain-wet around the hem, but Liam reckons they’ll be rid of it soon enough.

“High marks for effort, so far,” Liam breathes, catching Harry’s mouth again in a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Once again, all the art for the fic is [here](http://louislovelinson.tumblr.com/post/73587039665/1d-big-bang-i-broke-some-rocks-right-through).


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